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?
were the tenants offered a buyout? How much?
There are 3 building on my block being emptied via buyouts.
let make sure these tenants get a market rate buyout.
We bought a 4-family brownstone 6 years ago. It had 2 market-rate tenants, and we specifically did NOT buy a house with rent controlled, or even rent stabilized tenants, despite our plans to take over 2 floors of the building. We also interviewed the sitting tenants to make sure we liked them, despite them having no “rights” to remain. If we had not, we would have insisted on getting the house vacant or we would have walked away from the deal.
We could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by buying a building with rent stabilized tenants, but we didn’t because we did not want to be a position of having to evict someone. If this couple got a discount for buying a building with stabilized tenants, I have no sympathy for the plight they are in. They tried to get a “bargain” by upending people’s homes and they knew exactly what they were in for. There are plenty of one-family’s on the market. If they couldn’t “afford” to buy one, by some of you posters’ reasoning, they should have bought a house somewhere else, not tried to get some financial advantage because they were willing to do something most people would find difficult to do.
There is nothing wrong with rent stabilization. It’s the law, and everyone that buys a building now gets a discount if they have stabilized tenants. There IS something wrong with tenants who abuse stabilization — illegal sublets, etc. But those of you criticizing the poster who has a 2-bedroom apartment in Kensington for $1,600 are hypocrites unless you also are willing for your next door neighbor to add 10 stories onto his building.
The owner of a rent stabilized apartment building knew the law when they bought it — just like we all knew the zoning laws when we bought our homes. So, I can’t just do whatever I want with my home, and neither can your neighbor. Those of you who insist an owner should be able to do anything they want with their property should also insist that all zoning be outlawed so we can all build up to our heart’s content. Or raise cows or chickens in our backyard. Or make our basement floor a restaurant with ourdoor seating. You buy a property knowing the restrictions on it, so don’t cry poor me when you try to get (legally) around them. Just buy another property, or accept the criticism. After all, didn’t Scarano just try to “legally” get around the laws and everyone here is so quick to criticism him.
How about the hyperbolic comparison to child labor, is that okay?
Jeez, when will people learn that hyperbolic comparisons to slavery and the holocaust just plain silly? Really, it’s an insult to even compare the two to rent control. As stated much earlier in this thread, guilt tactics are unlikely to persuade people to see your point of view.
Some people benifit from rent controls and others from child labor, and still others from slavery and the holocaust; these renters seem to be the most harmless of the bunch and I have 11 such tenants. We had tenants paying between $83.00 and $136.00 in Boerum Hill for one bedrooms in the 80’s now it’s betweew $1200 and change and $1750. and change. Tenants can be, and usually are scum, but I am pulling for them after the sentiments I see written in these comments … most of it is plain evil, vile and mean spirited.
12:48 PM, shouldn’t you have gone after 7:55 AM and not 12:00PM?
Including you, 12:00PM.
But if we eliminated all racist idiots, Brownstoner would be left without a readership!
Our ignorant, racist troll can’t even get his rant correct. There are many, many more poor white people than black people across this country. They don’t call us minorities for nothing. So after he and his ilk try to get rid of 90% of the poor, the remaining ten percent are statistically going to be predominantly white. Those are white asses as well as black ones that need work.
Goes to show we are all in this boat together. Better that we should get rid of 100% of the racist idiots.