August 27, 2007
Landlord and Rising Rent Fears in El Barrio
Yesterday, East Harlem residents protested "greedy landlords" to raise concerns about gentrification. One resident, Otoniel Santiago, told amNew York that his $1,100 rent for his family's two-bedroom has zoomed up to $3,000 because of extra charges his landlord has added, "They said I had to pay or they would take legal action. I think they want us to get tired and move out, then they will bring in people who will pay $1,700 a month."
The group Movement for Justice in El Barrio says that tactics like that were not unusual. The other week, the Daily News' Albor Ruiz had a column about the worries stemming from British corporation Dawnay, Day's purchase of 47 rent-stabilized and rent-controlled buildings in East Harlem. Dawnay, Day's director Phil Blakely had given an interview with the Times of London about his company's plans:
“This is the area close to Mount Sinai hospital — you go down the streets and there are a lot of shopping centres being opened up. There are lots of young professionals moving in. It is a bit like buying in Brixton 15 years ago, where house prices have since gone up fivefold.”In other words, get the tenants to move out so rents can be jacked up. Which is why Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Juan Haro calls Dawnay, Day "worse" that the buildings' previous owner, Steve "One of the Worst Landlords in New York" Kessner.Dawnay, Day has already started preliminary negotiations on other large property portfolios in Harlem, Lower Manhattan and Queens. The bank is also considering sites in Chicago.
Mr Blakeley added: “Our intention is to build up. We are not just looking at New York — that is just a start. Our aim is to have in excess of $5 billion within a short period — within a few years.”
Mr Blakeley said that he had been attracted partly by the legal system for the leasings market, which, like the now-largely defunct old British system, allows for regular fixed-rate rises in rents for long-term sitting tenants. Once a tenant moves out, the chance to renovate and re-let at open market rates can offer the chance to raise the rent tenfold, which at the same time massively increases the capital value of the building.
A reason why the threat of gentrification is so chilling to longtime residents: According to amNY, "Prices per square foot in East Harlem skyrocketed 39.5 percent between 2005 and 2006," which is the biggest increase anywhere in Manhattan. Haro also says that the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development needs to enforce housing laws more actively. El Diario had an editorial mentioning that the NY State Division of Housing and Community Renewal needs to keep a closer eye on landlords as well.
Photograph of an East Harlem building by rob hoey on Flickr
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i live in a tiny ass 1 bed thats $1650 a month......IN BROOKLYN!!!!!!!
and i dont make shit
fuck that guy
bravo to Dawnay, Day
manhattan will be one giant overpriced island soon enough. sounds like a lot of fun.
i know two people who were pressured out of their west village apts by their landlords. he racked up all sorts of false accusations against them. serious falsehoods! these are two honest people one of whom was a school teacher in nyc public schools for like 35 years. neither can afford to put up a legal battle against him because he has this big legal team and uses lots of intimidating tactics. so one of these people moved out because it wasn't worth the amount of stress and trouble it would cost him to stay. the other is still fighting.
this is going on all over the city and no one really seems to care. i doubt bloomberg gives a damn because he's out of touch with the common people who have always been in this city and provide stability to their repsective communities. all he does is allow the reckless rezoning of the city for more rich developers who he is in cahoots with while his admin turns the other cheek on the issue of landlords neglecting and/or harrassing their tenants. bloomberg needs to show some character and take a stand against abusive landlords and put a halt to all of the rezoning and laxing of construction regulations and rules. i can only imagine the frustration these people in the above mentioned article must be going through.
Rally for another methadone clinic, that ought to keep rents down. there's one in Metropolitan Hospital. But then the area around Metropolitan is a little different than the area around Mt. Sinai.
Gentrification: Beating the character out of one neighborhood at a time.
give me a break. Gentrification to these folks means white people. It doesn't matter if the white people make as much or less than they do. The only thing that matters is they are white people and they don't want no white people movinig about their hood.
Talk about racist!
don't go down without a fight.
Boobie trap your vacant apartment if you have to. they fight dirty, time for us to do the same.
white people are bad news, man.
Reality Czech maybe you should read the article, their complaints are about the landlords, i guess we know who is racist here.
poor #1, maybe we should put together a collection so he can move back to the midwest.
this reminds me of bar reis in brooklyn, the landlord allowed the bar use of the "garden" in the back so that the tenants would move out because of all the noise on weeknights until 1am. this little 85 year old woman who had lived there for years had to suffer noise & pot smoke night after night because she had nowhere to go. most landlords are evil money-grubbing scum.
i've lived in east harlem for 5 years. it is changing rapidly. there are now hipsters in their 20s walking around up here, which pretty much never happened 4-5 years ago.
the above commenter who said the only difference between the majority of residents here and the incoming residents is skin color, not income, you are wrong -- which you would know if you walked around this neighborhood for two minutes. the people here are not being racist, they are trying to be able to continue to afford living in their neighborhood.
many people who have been here for years (generations) are getting pushed out. it is a shame, and it's going to lead to increased tension for the next several years.
RC- The issue isn't reverse racism against whites. I have several friends (white friends) that have lived in East Harlem for years without any problems. The issue is scummy landlords who are blatantly forcing longtime (msotly minority) residents to move out to appeal to new tenants.
It's not really about 'white people' in that respect Czech. Its about the fact that many of these hardworking people weathered some of the most horrible, crime ridden years in the city when all the 'white people' moved out and took all the jobs and opportunity with them and then all of a sudden, their kids come back, funded by the same "I don't want those darkies living in our neighborhood, lets move to the suburbs" white people that left 25 years ago and then get forced out of their homes because of skyrocketing rent.
As much as its a bad reason to point the finger at white people, I can kind of sympathize with their anger over this. For a long ass time many people wrote off the city entirely while these people had to stay there and make it work through the worst of times.
Hipsters are evil...
number 13 is correct, these long time residents lived through the worst years in the city's history.
that's when 96th street was the DMZ zone, now it's moved up a few blocks.
did I have a bad experience up there? sure but I only work there. I get to go home every evening.
was I mugged? NO. It was actually a safe area, just be smart. Listen to the long time residents, they know. Just don't listen regarding the fifty cent Fantasy cola making you sterile part. I did find it hard to find good Chinese food up there. I had to go to 86th street for that. P.R./Spanish food I've found north of 100th.
people don't get it... if you rent -- you have little or no say. someone else owns the property. if you wanted ties to your neighborhood you should have purchased your home back in the day when they were almost giving them away. i bet if you did, you would be all the willing to sell out for big $$$ to go elsewhere, so don't fault someone who actually did buy the property for wanting make some income on it. i currently share a rental and hope to buy one day once I find a neighborhood i want to put roots down in and have a down payment saved up-- i have no pity for these people whatsoever.
More and more people with low or even middle class incomes can no longer afford to live in New York except in the most distant neighborhoods. What happens when the waiters, retail workers, bartenders, cooks, janitors, and everyone else who does the work that keeps the city going has to move away?
Will people commute 3 hours to make minimum wage?
I'm not passing judgment here, just wondering aloud how long these rent increases can last.
Reality Czech, why do people like you always cry racism?
Since when are landlords in the business of providing charity services...?
mike D
free market will handle that
these jobs will have to pay higher wages or else no one take them
its over-regulation that has caused this mess in the first place..
#16- It's not true that if you rent, you have little or no say in what happens to your apartment.
Although they are eroding more and more each year, New York City still has better laws protecting tenants than most places in the rest of the country. Even if you are not living under a lease, a landlord still can't kick you out right away. Many people do not know their rights as tenants, or they get harassed or misinformed by their landlords. FYI, The Metropolitan Council on Housing is the best place to learn about these laws, and they also provide legal services for people who want to challenge their landlords in court.
oh, i guess it's just about people complaining that their neighborhood is getting better. That's right, better, because as far as I can remember, East Harlem was a shithole. Yeah, landlords are greedy, so what?
This is America, everyone has a right to do what they want with their property. This shit has been going on in just about every neighborhood in the outerborough where white people have started to move in.
Basically, landlords want tenants who will pay their rent and not squeeze 4,5,6,7,8 people into a two bedroom.
Really, I don't like the rent increases as much as the next guy, but if you can't hack it, move out.
That's the way it has been, that's the way it will always been.
White people have enough racism against them in these neighborhoods.
and another thing, if you really want to protest, then protest against the television channels who feel a need to feature NYC in tons of shows like Friends, King of Queens, Sienfeld, Law & Order, etc. so that every college graduate wants to move here.
And protest the movie studios who set too many films in NYC.
And protest against the corporations, for not creating offices in Jersey City or Baltimore.
And protest against America, which loves a free-market system.
funny how no one bitched when these neighborhoods went to hell in the first place.
waaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!
stfu
Corporations like Philip Morris wants their HQ at 102nd and second ave?
Guess they are the biggest junk dealers around so they would fit right in.
Hey, I'd like my rent to be lower as well, and hate when wealthier people take over the neighborhood. I also know that it's completely unreasonable to expect landlords to devote their lives to providing charity. I happen to have a good landlord who keeps the building maintained. He doesn't pressure the old residents out, but balances the rise in taxes and maintenance by renovating and renting to those who can afford a bit more (I'm directly in the middle). I think that's a reasonable compromise.
Can you honestly say that if you owned a building, that you wouldn't rent to people willing to pay higher prices? Given the choice, would you rather rent a railroad to a family of 4 for $800, or a single person for $1400-$1700?
Given the fact that some of the people who purchased buildings during the bad years are also residents of the community, isn't it fair to say that some are making out just fine?
That said, pressuring residents to move is always wrong.
I guess nobody feels sorry for the white people who had to leave THEIR neighborhoods as the government started handing out welfare checks like crazy and riots broke out in the inner cities during the 1960s. These white folks are the same people who spent the rest of their working careers with long commutes because they wanted to raise their families in a safe environment, away from the riff-raff who took over the city despite the fact that they contributed nothing to it. Guess what, they ultimately won the war of economics. Their kids grew up and prospered and don't want to live two hours from work. To all the whiny renters and their supporters, you lose - now is the time for you to get the f*ck out!
White people left their neighborhoods? really?
wow, news to me. time for you to go f*uk your mother. and, dig up your dead grandmother, too.
you mother already did those things, nothing left for me to do
hey #29, guess the truth hurts, huh?
your mother is a lesbian, wow, she likes to f@ck anyone or anything.
hey #29, that's what your mother said. only it wasn't the truth that hurt.
is it time that Gothamist took the next step and started *requiring* accounts to comment? it would be nice to have a conversation/debate without this sort of garbage in the threads.
A lot of illegal stuff is happening. My landlord is charging people $300 as a LEASE RENEWAL FEE! She wants people to move out so she can charge yuppies double the amount. super shady.
#28 you have taken the words right out of my mouth!! Cheers!!