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Photograph of Stuyvesant Town by Marianne O'Leary on Flickr
The turmoil at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village continues, as behemoth real estate developer Tishman Speyer Properties, is flushing out rent-stabilized tenants who it believes do not live in Stuy Town-Peter Cooper anymore.
It's an old refrain: Tishman claims many tenants are subletting their apartments and abusing the system, while tenants say the developer is harassing them in order to lease the apartments to market-rate tenants--average rent for a rent stabilized unit is under $1300 while a market-rate unit is twice that. According to the Times, tenants have been harassed before (by former landlord MetLife), but Tishman is extremely "aggressive," with "three law firms to work on the cases and a licensed private investigations service to conduct public records searches."
Though 239 tenants of the nearly 800 denied lease renewals have been able to keep their apartments (other cases are pending), a few lease denials were never supposed to happen. From the Times:
In 2007, Tishman Speyer accused Dolores J. Shapiro, 62, an anthropologist and retired professor of nursing, of actually living in Naperville, Ill. Ms. Shapiro says she has never been to Naperville. She hired a lawyer, James B. Fishman, who discovered in an Internet search that a woman with the same name but a different middle initial — Dolores M. Shapiro — appeared to reside at the Naperville address.And other tenants are just annoyed they need to supply proof of living there, when Tishman has surveillance footage of their key card data of their comings and goings (Tishman says it's trying to respect tenants' privacy).
Tishman Speyer bought the massive apartment complex in 2006, for $5.4 billion. Recently, even market-rate tenants have been surprised at Tishman's rent increases. These days, tenants can sue landlords for harassment, but we doubt Tishman has told anyone to put bedbugs into a tortilla and eat 'em.
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Here's an idea: get out of apartments that ain't rightfully yours to rent.
The easiest way to eliminate problems with overaggressive landlords? Eliminate rent control and rent stablization and pay market rent.
Only 3 in 10 legitimate, sounds like harassment. They should reimburse legal fees!
TS has every right to do this. If they reasonably suspect that someone is defrauding them, why shouldn't they go after them? Unfortunately, from time to time, some mistakes might be made, but we're dealing with a HUGE complex here.
And if TS had used surveillance, etc. to track tenants' comings and goings and those tenants had found out about it, you know they would have been screaming bloody murder about their invasion of privacy.
"Unfortunately, from time to time, some mistakes might be made"
BS They're applying a scatter gun approach, and forcing people to pony up >1k to defend themselves.
Poor TS, what a joke.
It doesn't seem like they have reasonable suspicion, though. I imagine the example listed as one of the more outrageous cases, but it's not the sort of thing that should require a lawyer to sort out. A 3 year-old could have spotted the difference in names.
You have no privacy when you enter and leave a building, or in the public areas of a shared building (not sure what agreements tenants may have signed wrt keycard data, though).
It would seem that the only reason you would need a lawyer to prove you are rightfully living where you are living is if you are being harassed.
People have to prove residence all the time... when you register your car, when you register the kids for school... and you never need a lawyer for those. But I guess these good, responsible developers must be just doing a more thorough job.
I'd ask the Mayor to do something about this, but he'd have to get Tishman/Speyer's dick out of his mouth long enough to stand up.
In addition, Tishman is spending an ENORMOUS amount of money on somewhat questionable landscaping & repaving paths in Stuy Town that ultimately will be used to qualify as a Major Capital Improvement and allow them to raise rent of rent stabilized tenents. See the Q&A below from the NYTimes real estate section on Sunday.
Article below from NYTimes 05/25
-----------------------------------------
Q & A
Passing Along the Cost of Landscaping
Article Tools Sponsored By
By JAY ROMANO
Published: May 25, 2008
Q I live in Stuyvesant Town, where a massive landscaping project is being carried out on the grounds.
Will the management be able to pass off the cost of the landscaping to rent-stabilized tenants as a major capital improvement?
A “Under the Rent Stabilization Law, for a major capital improvement to qualify for a rental increase, it must be an improvement that ‘is for the operation, preservation and maintenance of the structure,’ ” said David Ng, a Manhattan landlord-tenant lawyer. Therefore, landscaping alone would not qualify for an M.C.I. rent increase.
If the work is done in connection with a qualifying M.C.I., however, the landscaping can qualify for an M.C.I. increase, Mr. Ng said.
Qualifying M.C.I. work would include installing concrete, replacing parking lots and driveways, putting down brick sidewalk paving and performing other similar resurfacing work.
So, if the Stuyvesant Town landscaping project is being done in conjunction with some other major grounds work like repaving, the landscaping itself would qualify for an M.C.I. increase.
Or you might need a lawyer to prove your New York residency because you are in fact not a legal New York resident. If you have the documents it should be an open and shut case. Perhaps some of these people consider themselves New York residents but have some conflicting documentation. People register cars illegally in other states all the time. Maybe someone can explain why there is always a red Volkswagen in front of my apartment with Vermont plates and a NYPD parking placard. Are you telling me the owner commutes every day? Anyway, you would think this would begin and end with where you file your tax return. But then even guys like Derek Jeter try to cheat that too.
Speyer has ever right to enforce occupancy agreements, but they shouldn't be coming down on people who simply have another person by the same name living in another state. I know a search would find many people with my name living in other states.
The quicker NY gets rid of this ridiculous system the better. Why do people feel entitled to live in someone else's property for less than what the market will bear? This is a NYC phenomenon. Everywhere else, people live where they can afford. I for one am sick of paying such high taxes and monthly rent to cover people not pulling their own weight.
Agree with jenchungsbra, Speyer should exercise a little more care in making the initial determination of a lease denial.
Still, it seems like it might be more an administrative error than a deliberate attempt by them to create a problem- there's obviously a process in place to handle such things if 239 tenants of the nearly 800 denied lease renewals have been able to keep their apartments.
Shapiro was reportedly denied for living of Naperville because someone didn't pay close enough attention to the middle initial of Dolores M. Shapiro vs. Dolores J. Shapiro -- it's not altogether clear that getting a lawyer was a necessary step for her to clear the error up, but she did and the reason for the mistake was discovered. Sounds like the process worked.
Obviously anyone who is breaking the law (and making life miserable for those who are law-abiding) would need a lawyer. But if T-S were really only focused on weeding out the abusers from the law abiders, then a simple proof (tax returns, utility bills, employment records) should suffice.
Unless, of course,T-S not as pure of heart as they claim.
wow, i was surprised to see all the TS backers on here.
just stay away from my paddle tennis courts.
#14, I agree. Why are people defending Tishman for such an obvious example of landlord abuse?
Tishman is using a well-known technique that other landlords are using, where they find another person with your same name to "prove" that you're living somewhere else. It's blatantly fraudulent on the *landlord's* part to use this technique.
If your name is John Smith, consider yourself screwed.
You mean a notarized statement saying it's your primary residence is not enough?
It's enough for architects and PE's to self cert their plans for developments.
Nobody's defending abusive behavior (I don't think), just a landlord's right to enforce the occupany rules. And I think people support that because people who play by the rules hate to see others scam the system and get away with it. If someone's really not living there like they're supposed to be as a condition to have a great deal on an apartment then take the place away from them.
If it wasn't for subletting a quarter of the people living in this city would not be living in this city. I guess TS has the right to do what they are doing but it just feels like yet another crack down on pushing out the hard-working people of this city to make way for richy riches. The definition of "market value" by New York City standards is a very skewed one - and the word "fair" should never be used when describing it here.
Tishman didn't buy this complex just to sit back and let the present R.O.I. roll in and the rent-stabilized tennants continue their subsidized privileges. When a sale was announced, that was the cue for these people to wake up and smell the dogshit. Now they're swimming in it. Welcome to New York.