Tenants Fight Eviction on Bergen Street
A Prospect Heights block party yesterday had homemade food, loud music and a louder message: Good neighbors do not evict neighbors. The Fifth Avenue Committee-organized event was aimed at drawing attention to the plight of four rent-stabilized tenants facing eviction from 533 Bergen Street, and it highlighted bubbling tensions over affordable housing, gentrification and Atlantic…
A Prospect Heights block party yesterday had homemade food, loud music and a louder message: Good neighbors do not evict neighbors. The Fifth Avenue Committee-organized event was aimed at drawing attention to the plight of four rent-stabilized tenants facing eviction from 533 Bergen Street, and it highlighted bubbling tensions over affordable housing, gentrification and Atlantic Yards. Councilmember Letitia James, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and various activists spoke in support of the longtime tenants, who are fighting lawsuits from 533 Bergen’s new owners. The two couples that bought the building last year—Dan Bailey and Felicity Loughrey, along with Deanne Cheuk and Andre Wiesmayr—claim they want to evict the tenants because Bailey and Loughrey intend to construct a triplex for themselves out of the units. Under current laws, landlords of rent-stabilized buildings are allowed to evict tenants if they plan to live in the units themselves.
Most speakers called for reforming rent-regulation laws and maintaining affordability for low-income residents. Rents in Prospect Heights are increasingly beyond the means of most working-class families, said Councilmember James. We must preserve this community’s diversity. James and Senator Montgomery both characterized the push to evict 533 Bergen’s tenants as secondary displacement from Atlantic Yards. Brent Meltzer, a lawyer with South Brooklyn Legal Services who is representing one of the tenants, noted that if the landlords succeed with the evictions, 3,500 square feet that four families live in will be given over to just one family. The most basic articulation of the situation, however, came from Rosa Negron, one of 533 Bergen’s residents: How you going to evict people who’ve been living here all these years?
Something else important to KNOW is that the Block Party in this story was organized by the Fifth Avenue Committee and they have been instrumental in naming the landlords and bad mouthing them in the press – Controversially, the Fifth Avenue Committee owns property in Sunset Park through a deal with the city. And they are displacing the residents who have lived in those properties for years and are now selling the properties at closer to market rate than the residents which the city had placed in them can afford. How hypocritical is that? And if the organizers of these rallies are displacing tenants themselves, then doesn’t this just reconfirm the views of 1:59 that anyone else would buy into a similar deal if they could.
So, what if the building wasnt rent stabilized and the new landlords could easily and quietly evict the tenants – is that as morally wrong? Or is everyone just pissed because the tenants in this case are rent stabilized and assumed to be poor – there is no comment from the landlords in this story, who is to say that the tenants are not wealthier than the landlords and are just being greedy and holding out for a large buyout? How do you know the buyers are 30-somethings? How do you know none of the tenants are 30-somethings?
I would do it too if the tenants could be easily evicted and it was cheaper and larger than the average one bedroom, sure, why not?
You have a pretty low opinion of other people if you think the only reason people are unwilling to legally evict long-term tenants is simply because they are afraid of public outings. In your world, everyone would jump at such a deal, if they could only have done it quietly, so none of their neighbors knew what they had done to be able to afford their home.
You can rationalize choices, of course. You are doing it for “your family” (although how a family needs 60 rooms I don’t know). The tenants are wrong for thinking they have some right to the apartment, so your actions are okay.
But, there are lots of people who scrimped and saved for years to buy a brownstone. First they bought some crummy 1 bedroom that increased in value, or they bought some house they could afford in a neighborhood that wasn’t desirable, and devoted themselves to improving that community (as many in Prospect Heights did). Now they have a home worth nearly 2 million dollars and bully for them. If one of those 20-year homeowners had decided they wanted to take over another floor of their brownstone, and displace rent stabilized tenants, they of course have every right to do so.
But these new owners took a shortcut. They weren’t rich enough to buy a vacant one outright, nor willing to go to a less desirable neighborhood. But hey, here’s a bargain building and all you have to do to own it is to evict lots of long term tenants who don’t have any right to it anyway. As you say, you’d jump at a chance to take such a shortcut.
These buyers are 30 something people who had lots of options. I continue to believe that I’m not the only person here who would have picked a different option, even if it meant my family had to suffer by living in a 3 bedroom instead of 6. So don’t ask me to feel sorry for the owners who went into this deal with their eyes wide open. As you say, the law is on their side, and soon they will have the nice home of their dreams.
This isnt ‘Power of Ten’ here, it is ridiculous to throw out random suggestions about the percentages of people that would do this or that, and to assume that “Most of us would choose to live in a different home that may not be as fabulous as the one we could afford if we displaced alot of long-time tenants from their home” is such an unfounded generalization – If I had the money and could buy a whole building, of which half would house my family and the other half could pay for some of the mortgage, for the same price as ONE apartment, of course I am going to make the decision to buy the entire building over the one apartment.
So the whole building is cheaper than the one apartment because it contains rent stabilized apartments, what, you are going to condemn me for choosing the option that I can afford because it will better house my large family, will be a better investment for my future and theirs? I dont believe that anyone wouldn’t do the same thing in the SAME situation and the only thing to put others off doing it is the prospect of public outings at Block parties like these poor landlords have had to endure.
The landlords have paid for the building and they have the LEGAL right to live there, the tenants are renting [and probably not even paying rent during this ‘protest’] and I find it astounding that they feel they have a claim to an apartment they dont even own just because they have lived there for a long time, I find THAT perfectly worthy of criticism.
Okay, I googled this, and as I suspected, the new owners of the Propect Heights house purchased it at a steep discount because it had rent stabilized tenants. I’m sure they would have had to settle for a much smaller co-op if they hadn’t been willing to evict.
Sorry, I don’t believe most of the readers on here would make that trade-off. But how about a poll: You can buy a smaller property at market rate, but if you have no problems taking advantage of the law and displacing lots of poor families who have lived in a house for 20 years, you can get a “bargain” and get a whole brownstone for yourself. It’s all perfectly legal.
We all love brownstones on this blog. Is getting one for yourself worth this tradeoff?
I WALK BY THERE ALL THE TIME
THAT BUILDING LOOKS LIKE A DUMP HAHA
You are absolutely correct that folks taking over a rent stabilized building for their own use are doing something completely legal. And the people who have lived in the building for 20 years have been lucky to have a low rent for so long.
But lots of things are legal, and that doesn’t make them pass the “smell” test. Just like taking advantage of some elderly homeowner can be perfectly legal. That doesn’t mean that critics can’t judge you for getting some finiancial gain for taking some action the rest of us find abhorrent.
We all make choices every day. Most of us would choose to live in a different home that may not be as fabulous as the one we could afford if we displaced alot of long-time tenants from their home. But clearly, for some people, the value of a fabulous home — living in a triplex instead of a duplex, or having a 60-room mansion instead of a 30 — far outweighs the “inconvenience” of getting rid of the current tenants.
The context matters. I have no problem with the eviction if these are the long-time home owners who had a rental building they decided to live in as their primary residence. But if these are new owners buying a new property at a discount because it has rent stabilized tenants they know they can legally evict, well, I think that’s an action that is more questionable. Why not simply buy another Prospect Heights brownstone that is vacant? This is not the only house on the market. But unless there is some compelling reason for THAT house, the owners are buying it because they can’t afford to get an empty house. Maybe they’d have to settle for a duplex only. So why shouldn’t they be rewarded for the willingness to evict, right?
Same goes for the east village owners. They are rich enough to buy a mansion elsewhere — why did they have to buy that particular property, knowing full well what that meant.
Sorry, but we all make choices every day. Without some compelling reason (and perhaps there is one I am unaware of) that someone had to buy THAT property instead of one that didn’t mean they had to displace alot of people, I find their actions worthy of criticism. Perfectly legal, but worthy of criticism.
10.07
is twenty years really a “flash”
come on you have to argue with some intellectual honesty.
a renter who rents a rent stabilized apartment should be happy and indeed lucky to be able to stay for 20 years. especially those folks who rent in brownstones that were cut up, or in small apartment buildings.
the legislature put the “owner use” section in the Law for a reason. that is one of the ways that it differs from “rent controlled” units