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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?


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  1. Hi, 1:47, it’s 1:00. I haven’t been researching farther-flung areas in the five boroughs, but if I were you I’d think about looking in the Hudson Valley, at stops on MetroNorth, which means not going further north than Poughkeepsie (Amtrak is hopeless, too expensive, and unreliable). But the MetroNorth commute isn’t too long or expensive, the ride along the river is absolutely beautiful, and some of those towns have decent public schools or affordable private ones. Poughkeepsie in particular has big kid-friendly houses in historic districts with huge front and back yards and garages, a walkable distance from the station. Just make sure you understand the local property tax structure, as some of the smaller HV towns impose insane annual tax burdens on what otherwise look like affordable houses. Otherwise, I think I’d look in Queens – maybe Jackson Heights, though I know that’s gotten pricey too.

  2. 1:55–

    The next thing you’ll likely be told is that if those folks just moved along out of here to some place more appropriate to their income–somewhere like Poughkeepsie, or better, Bismarck–the city and employers would be forced to pay them what they’re worth to maintain basic services. You know, just like in Atlas Shrugged. After a while the remaining folks who decide they can’t hack the increasing costs of services will leave, easing pressure on the housing market. Then, the people who stuck out the commute from PA can move back in with their higher salaries, and order will be restored. Isn’t the invisible hand marvelous to behold?

    I’d put my money on the city’s physical and social infrastructure collapsing long before then.

  3. Hey 1:17, it’s 12:46. I guess on paper it sounds like we’re leaking money, but I gotta say, after paying rent and insurance (life, renters, health, disability), feeding everyone (we don’t order or go out, we cook every night), clothing everyone (from Old Navy & the Gap, mostly, and who knew a kid’s feet could grow so fast?), keeping the lights on and the phone working and the computer connected, and putting some money away in savings/college fund, we’re breaking even. No vacations, no car (we get there on the subway or we don’t get there at all), and we see all of our movies on DVD. We’re happy, and I’m not complaining, but I’m not sure what other corners we could be cutting. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think I live in a shithole, but my neighborhood has been called that here and on Curbed.

  4. If all of the people who are “too poor” to afford anything in NYC decided to move to more affordable areas, who would teach the children? Who would serve as police officers and firefighters or pick up your trash? An effective community can support people at all levels of the society, not just the folks in the million dollar homes. I don’t think people are arguing that [“poor people”, civil servants for example] are entitled to Brownstone luxury, but for goodness sake, why shouldn’t the “average Joe” who’s not making a Wall Street wage get to own a home also?

  5. when we moved to New York in 2003, we scored a small 2 br on the Upper West Side for 1700, rent stabilized. We lived there for a year, saved a bunch of money and then bought. I have no problem with people following the rules re rent control/stabilization.

    The problem is those who don’t. In our current small co-op, which still has 4 rent controlled apts., there are at least 2 in which there are illegal subletters. However, the leaseholders know that we cannot afford a protracted legal fight to find them in violation. It’s instances like this that make me hate the system.

    As for the house in question: the owners have chosen to roll the dice with an eviction fight, but perhaps there’s a middle ground that could be reached through mediation, like a lump sum and x number of months to find a new place.

  6. Hi 1:00 and 1:03, this is 12:46,

    1:00 — you were smart and brave and I wish I had done the same. For what it’s worth, when I say I had no money, I mean I really had no money. I was working in the non-profit theatre and making about $16,000 a year, so any scrimping I did was to be able to do laundry! As my income increased (I left the theatre to do something else) I first paid off a rather substantial credit card debt (which I accumulated trying to live on $16,000 a year and then getting divorced). Buying always felt very overwhelming and rather impossible, but in retrospect I see I made many missteps along the way. My husband and I are a little lost as to what to do now, to be honest, which is one of the reasons I read these boards. We’re out of debt and saving (which we’re able to do because we’re in this rent stabilized situation), and the goal is to buy and move along so someone else can have the benefit of our place. I will admit that I’m less willing to be a “pioneer,” as you were, with a 2-year-old. Any ideas where we should be looking? You seem to have a good head for this.

    1:03 — I’m not sure I follow. I don’t claim to be needy, but I do think that $100,000 doesn’t go very far here (in fact, I recently read a thread that claimed that making in the low six figures makes you just “average” in NYC, and that you haven’t accomplished very much at that salary. As I worked like hell to get to $100,000, that smarted.) As I say above, our goal is to save and then move along into a place we own. I’m the opposite of “I got mine … ” I’m grateful. I think everyone deserves a safe, clean, affordable place to live, and I feel fortunate to be in our situation. I didn’t mean to come off as an entitled jerk. I wrote my original post just to illustrate that not everyone in rent stabilization is paying $200 a month while holding a million dollar portfolio, a deadbeat, or a lucky SOB in a classic 6 that he got from grandma. Some people are just working stiffs like me and my husband, with a kid. Just curious, what would you have us do instead? And I’m not trying to provoke or pick a fight, so play nice.

    Yeah yeah, I know, we should just pack up and move to Iowa. But where’s a girl from the Bronx supposed to find a good bagel there?

  7. Some of you people who’re too poor to buy real estate in NYC need to realize that nice homes aren’t for everyone. You could move upstate or out of state…just keep going until things become affordable. If you change your location and lower your standards sufficiently, you’ll find something affordable. In the meantime, please stop your whining and get back to work.

    And yes, I WILL have fries with that, thank you very much.

  8. Many posters here seem to be unfamiliar with New York’s peculiar rent protection laws. In NYC, renters and their heirs, own the right to occupy their rent regulated unit. If Real estate onwership is a bundle of rights, the renters own quite a few pieces of the bundle. Rent control did not start yesterday, it has been this way in the city since the 1940’s. The courts are not going to be sympathetic to these owners. They have a long hard, and I would guess, fruitless road ahead of them.
    Owning rental property in NY is not like owning it in a state like Florida where you can evict a long ime tenant for being fifteen days late with the rent.
    The NYC politicians are every bit as bound up in this as are the landlords. No one who wants to reform the rent laws would ever be elected in the city. Rent control is a peculiar legacy of NYC and many people here have arranged and lived their lives around it. You just can’t change the rules when it suits you, odd as those rules may seem.

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