Here are some photos of our project neighbors to the south of us. Some of you, perhaps many of you, may be in for a surprise, as you probably consider these places dangerous and never visit them. But, basically, these residential areas and ST/PCV are projects. You are probably paying far, far more to live in your project building, however.
There's a reason you don't want to consider that you are living in the projects, as it would be shocking to your self-identity. You'd also feel the landlord is ripping you off, most particularly if you are paying market rate. Your landlord wants you believe that you are living in luxury, as he provides you with cheap-trick amenities to try to hide the obvious truth.
There are, however, differences between ST/PCV and a few of these other projects:
1) ST/PCV is huge, dwarfing in size other project areas. Which is why there is so much interest in acquiring ST/PCV...for the land.
2) We are closer to the center of the city, with easier access to points north and south than many of our project neighbors. (And some residents still bitch about our location!)
3) The park-like grounds are more expansive, as are the playgrounds. (However, along the East River by the above projects are many fields that put what we have to shame.)
4) There is a greater security presence in ST/PCV.
5) The grounds tend to be better kept and more frequently attended to.
6) A significant difference: There are very few minorities (blacks and Hispanics) living in our community. I'm not saying that it's racist to desire to live here--search your conscience--but race plays a part of the appeal of ST/PCV. Let's put it down to "birds of a feather like to flock together."
But, yes, we are living in the projects. This is why ST/PCV only works if the rents are affordable. Otherwise, tenants are being ripped off big time.
63 comments:
I don't understand why more of those paying market rate aren't challenging their rents which were raised to unreachable heights by any legal means. The market rate are the ones Marsh calls "responsible" so why aren't they being responsible?
One advantage of these projects is that there is no entitled, empathy free, flyover state, screaming, drunk, puking, pissing, Bro Woo Hoo herds roaming at will during the night. They would last around 5 minutes there. BTW, I walk through them all the time, never an issue. I sometimes shop at C-Town on Ave. C,still mostly Hispanic families, so refreshing, although there is now some BRO/OMG infestation. Their produce sucks but the Goya section rocks! Prices for most stuff lower than Associated.
Sounds like the appraisal needs to be challenged.
One of the biggest causes of the mortgage frauds was the corruption in the appraisals.
Either the appraisers are corrupt or their formulas are seriously flawed or both.
Architectural perspective from 2006
Stuyvesant Town was, and continues to be, the most successful and emulated of post-World War II largescale housing experiments that sought to provide an alternative—some claimed better—urban living environment for the middle class. Stuyvesant Town, in its architecture and landscape, expresses a distinctly suburban solution to the urban problem of sustainable density; it is essentially a suburb in the heart of the city. Stuyvesant Town’s architecture and landscape were largely informed by a combination of LeCorbusier’s “Tower in the Park” model, introduced in America by modernist architects like Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, and Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City” model. A plaque outside one of the buildings commemorates the vision of MetLife’s chairman Frederick Ecker; it reads “...that families of moderate means might live in health, comfort and dignity in parklike communities, and that a pattern might be set of private enterprise productively devoted to public service.” Stuyvesant Town’s 8,755 apartments were designed to accommodate around 24,000 people, and the average two-bedroom apartment rented for $75 a month.
Stuyvesant Town’s architectural identity is defined by a modernist sensibility for clean lines and materials, and an efficiency of building mass and volume. Another important contributor to its visual identity is the inwardfocused layout and the high ratio of open, landscaped space to built fabric. The orderly dispersal of ninety nine- to thirteen-story unadorned red brick buildings across the seventy two acres of green space constituting the site was an attempt to solve the problems of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions traditionally associated with city living. Correspondingly, the cross-shaped plan of each building was a deliberate attempt to provide more light and better ventilation than was typically available in a row house or tenement.
The provision for a large central green space, the Oval, and the strategic location of playgrounds between buildings are particularly expressive manifestations of a more abstract planning goal embodied by Stuyvesant Town: to foster a sense of community within a safe and stable context. The inverse of this goal—keeping the greater urban community at a proscribed distance—is articulated by the specific orientation of buildings. The inward-facing, self-contained nature of Stuyvesant Town begins with the twenty buildings arranged radially around the Oval, and culminates in the peripheral buildings, which present their monumental rear facades to the surrounding streets in a defensive, fortress-like gesture. Finally, Stuyvesant Town can only be accessed through eight formal entrance points (for both cars and pedestrians); this relative inaccessibility distances Stuyvesant Town from the greater urban community, confirming its identity as a community set apart from the rest.
http://www.gsapp.org/Archive/HP/2005-2006/resources/resources_primary1.html
This perspective is brought to us by
Each year the Historic Preservation faculty designates a particular portion of New York City as the study area for the first year students' studio sequence. The end product of this year-long studio is the creation of a preservation plan that addresses the significance, challenges, and recommendations for historic resources within the study area. Each preservation plan is a collaborative effort by the students, and is the result of two semester's worth of in-depth study and analysis of the study area's historic, architectural, and social characteristics.
Just posted the Columbia study and left off their credit. This goes with my previous post.
Columbia University | Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation | Historic Preservation Studio Sequence
No way in this world were those overpriced MR units brought up to the rents they are going for by legal means. There should be an audit of each and every MR apartment going back to when it came out of rent stabilization. And let us not kid ourselves that every unit in PCVST is rent stabilized. That is total nonsense.
The numbers don't add up. The appraisal is preposterous.
Shame on them for not investing in the infrastructure and maintenance of the buildings. This place was once great and could still be had they not all but destroyed everything laid out in the Columbia grad report. What a bunch of small minded, short term thinkers.
They could have had more glory, be more renown, and built greater fortune if they weren't small minded idiots.
Every apartment in ST-PCV is still rent stabilized for now.
The insanely high legal RS rents here are because the GOP majority in the State Senate rewrote rent regulations in 1997. The rewrite essentially killed rent regulation in NYC for almost everybody who wasn't already living in a RS apartment. If people refuse to acknowledge that, the problem can't be fixed.
"And let us not kid ourselves that every unit in PCVST is rent stabilized. That is total nonsense.
I hope you do realize, that currently, it not total nonsense. Your grasp of the NYS RS law tenuous at best. Your lease renewal that is sent to you every year or every other year? That right plus many other are guaranteed to you under the NYS RS law. If the RS law sunsets in 2015, all bets are off. And in 2020, as has been posted here and at the TA FB page, unless something state wide is done, all of the 4000 plus Roberts apartment lose their NYS RS protections when the J-51 tax abatement expires, even if the NYS RS law is renewed in 2015. BTW, for the Roberts settlement, there was an audit done for the $ renovations claimed and it was accepted by the Court. Do I think it was BS? Sure, but that game is over.
That hallway in the projects looks a hell of a lot cleaner than what we have here; also, the grounds are litter-free. Can't say that for the Sty, especially on the 14th Street side.
Because the MR tenant knows if he pushes, inquires, disputes, he will be thrown out of his apartment. Not renewed, abused or have rent raised mid term, full on inspection.
I know this for fact. Ask them yourself.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
― George Orwell
STR you are a full-fledged journalist.
3:14 pm - I agree with one exception: there was no audit of the renovation expenses related to the units. Our lawyers did not demand that audit. They accepted the calculations and the Court agreed. As a Roberts class member (and one who is very active in understanding the terms of the agreement) I was upset about that.
If you have proof to the contrary, please tell us all. If not, I'll stick with the info I have as truth.
Notice how all the grass areas (but not areas with low plantings) are fenced off in those other places? That's how you make sure they're not used for batting practice and football games. Also, when I was growing up here, we referred to ST as "the project." That was before our overlords tried to fancy us up.
Stytown Shit Town, Stytown Piss Town, Stytown Filthy Town, Stytown Projects......You're paying how much to live here? What an abject dump.
Anony. 8.27 AM, Anony. 3,14 PM here.
See the Berdonclaims link I provided. See the “Documents” folder. See the “Robert’s Workshop Questions and Answers” PDF. See sections 11 and 12.
http://www.berdonclaims.com/cases/Details.aspx?cid=243#tb_main
"11.“Does the Settlement agreement contain any requirements or limitations on the amount that is the basis of the individual apartment improvement increase?
The Settlement Agreement accepts the amount of Individual Apartment
Improvements (“IAIs”) reported by the owner for each Unit. This is because the attorneys for the Class had enlisted the assistance of an auditing firm to review the
claimed IAIs for a random sample of approximately 10% of the 4,311 Roberts Apartments. This stringent review determined that the owners were able to verify the
claimed IAIs to a level required by the courts for about 90% of the reviewed improvements, and were likely able to do so for the remainder if given sufficient time. Accordingly, the Settlement accepts the owner’s claimed IAIs in exchange for the
reduced number of Standard Vacancy Increases under the damages and Preferential Rent
formulas.
12. Can tenants obtain copies of the proof of IAIs that were evaluated during the
litigation?
Because the Settlement agrees with the owner’s claimed IAIs for the reasons discussed in the prior question, the Settlement does not require the owner to provide Class Members with documentation further substantiating the IAIs. However, as previously discussed, the attorneys for the Class believe that the owner can prove the
great majority of the claimed IAIs under the law, based on the results of the independent
auditing firm’s stringent review of the IAIs."
Anyway, I am not a plaintiff in the Roberts settlement but I think these sections go into the weeds of why the Individual Apartment Improvements (“IAIs”) were accepted. BS, but a done deal. Correct me if I am wrong, Thanks
I went to the DOH and asked for this audit mentioned here and to complain of overcharges . They were very unhelpful and downright rude. There was no such thing as an audit and talking throughout the glass they totally ignored this. they said they have one form to report overcharges of landlords. i filled it out, they want 65 copies of paid checks and pages of info. I'm made to feel the bad guy there.
The RS sections of housing now is run by landlords and they are controlling it all. D o not think for one minute that you'll get one dime back. They just play the waiting game, back forth until you fold.
The TA should DEMAND an audit of those apartments that jumped thousands of dollars from low rent to astronomical rent. Those shitty renovations are not worth that much and units have been churned and churned by all kinds of devious methods. We need a complete and thorough investigation into the practices of this lowlife landlord.
7:28 PM landlords cannot just evict tenants out of RS apts.
What our landlord can do is keep flipping apts so that the legal rents are insanely high - higher than market rate - thanks to vacancy increases allowed by RS regs that CWCap has been exploiting. Once legal rent on a RS apt gets insanely high, the landlord can offer a lower, preferential rent to prospective tenants. There's nothing legally stopping our landlord from increasing the preferential rent to the much higher legal rent when the lease expires, even if that's a 500% increase. So it may be in the tenant with a big preferential to legal rent differential's best interest to behave. Then again, the landlord can just go for the too-high legal rent again upon renewal to get the tenant out in order to get another vacancy increase. And so on.
If by a miracle the state gov't closed that loophole tomorrow, some 40+% of apts in ST-PCV are still lost forever as affordable rental units, even if they stayed RS after 2020 by another miracle.
8:27 AM
Probably because (a) there was never a mandated way to go about auditing landlord renovation costs before, and (b) there were just too many apts involved. Now there is a way for non-Roberts tenants. There's been some discussions here about audits by the new Tenant Protection Unit of the DHCR tasked with looking into complaints of landlord fraud.
I contacted Brian Kavanagh's office about how to request such an audit. Here's the response I got:
"The Tenant Protection Unit (TPU) does not accept individual suggestions for audits. Their audit decisions are based upon data collected; if a particular building or landlord received numerous complaints, the TPU would perform an audit."
You may fill out the appropriate overcharge complaint form here: http://www.nyshcr.org/Forms/Rent/#tenant in order to alert DHCR to the specific problem."
People need to start filing complaints.
Is CWC alerted when overcharge complaints come in? Can anyone post experience with this?
#RA 89 why can't you give people who need it the form number? RA 89
RA 89 for overcharges. EVERYONE FILE WHO HAS A MR high RENT. I don't, but I'd do it for you if i could.
Walking through p c v and stuy today and kids are running around, happy and safe. Seniors are chatting on benches in the shade.
How sad to think this may not be their homes for much longer. It's terrible what's happening to the city, and especially to ST. Shameful really and it feels like we're just letting it go.
If the TA had put as much energy into going after the landlord for all of the egregious practices it employs to raise rents and destroy our community, instead of working on becoming owners of the property, I think they would have the right to call themselves the TENANTS Association. As it is, they are tools of the greedy and slimy Garodnick and his vulture law and RE pals.
>>Walking through p c v and stuy today and kids are running around, happy and safe. Seniors are chatting on benches in the shade.<<
And tons of young people from outside ST/PCV are coming in to take advantage of the Oval Lawn because it's much better to sunbathe here than at Tomkins Square Park of Union Square Park. And Oval Cafe is open to all!
10:36am - thanks for going to the effort of copying and pasting the Berdon Claims FAQ.
BUT... lawyers are lawyers and choose their words precisely. Our lawyers had a 3rd party review the Landlord's data. Our lawyers never audited (full-blown, turn over the rocks), they performed "a stringent review". I know its parsing... but you know if the lawyers "audited" they would use that exact term.
Thanks for dropping the info here. It's always great to talk over the 'facts'.
fwiw... at the time of litigation, I had emailed the lawyers with my willingness to assist in audit. It was not accepted. I have experience in "build-outs" and the related billings, that's why I volunteered.
As far as audits go on Roberts apartments, I'm not sure we can audit them now since Class action was settled and rents (legal) are essentially agreed to. I'll leave that to the lawyers out there to find a work-around.
2:09 the only way to retain or establish affordability is thru ownership. Why this reality eludes you and several other posters is truly puzzling.
Garodnick seems to have a Machiavellian hold over the TA.
>>2:09 the only way to retain or establish affordability is thru ownership. Why this reality eludes you and several other posters is truly puzzling.<<
Absolutely not true. All apartments that will convert to condo will lose being affordable if they were long-term RS and won't be under RS protections anymore. Truly affordable housing here will take another hit.
As rentals, due to renovations etc, all vacancies are lost to affordability. Ergo the only way to maintain affordability is thru ownership which halts predatory practices like exorbitant apt upgrades and offers affordable ownership and RS rentals. The idea that continuing as rental maintains affordable housing stock is absurd.
STR at 3:24 PM
So then what do you propose?
10.36 here. Hey, I did end my comment with "BS". Also, thanks for the clarification of "audit" versus "stringent review", very interesting.
Also, just screaming the TA is corrupt; Garodnick is corrupt and then saying that the TA should have been using their limited resources (the same people swear that that will never join the TA) for this or that does not make any sense. Sorry, you can't have it both ways. I know there are former members who left for various reasons, the main one being the conversion. But the Board has changed recently with two new members, Anne Greenberg and Thomas O’Connor, so try to give the TA a second chance.
>>As rentals, due to renovations etc, all vacancies are lost to affordability. Ergo the only way to maintain affordability is thru ownership which halts predatory practices like exorbitant apt upgrades and offers affordable ownership and RS rentals. The idea that continuing as rental maintains affordable housing stock is absurd.<<
How does this place going condo stop renovations from happening once there is a vacancy? Do you think Brookfield would go for something like this? (And they'd be the ones in command, not the TA.) Yes, yes, I know about the promises to keep a certain percentage of housing stock "affordable," but my bet is that percentage will be small.
The only way to stop the turnover of RS to market-rate apartments (despite them being called RS apartments now, their prices say otherwise) is through laws. Making this place go condo would be a disaster to affordable housing, in that it would quicken the pace of its eradication much more than letting things ride out, even if there are no new laws preventing such turnovers.
We need to get on same page. We need the MR tenants as they're are more of them than us, every day now. They're care and concern for affordability is crucial to our voices. Not the brohos but those who want to be here longterm, add to the community.etc.
2:19 - well, we're paying the employees to sit and check KEY CARDS at the basketball courts but I see them letting in kids who do not live there. Fine by me, can we just stop paying CR employees to do nothing?
"2:09 the only way to retain or establish affordability is thru ownership. Why this reality eludes you and several other posters is truly puzzling."
The TA Mantra. You must be a board member.
@4:48 no, a TA member and someone who took a minute to understand the predicament and the realistic solutions.
I agree with you STR that condo conversion is probably not a great idea. But it may be the lesser of two evils. With the present CWC and CR, we are totally and completely fucked and this time it will be far worse than TS. We will be wishing for the TS days - of this I'm sure.
Anon at 504. You are technically correct except there appears to be no way to acquire STPCV at a price that would help ensure affordability if the $4.7 billion bid by Fortress materializes. Any TA bid would have to be at least that much. Reason that STPCV is worth this amount today is the rapid turnover of apartments and rising rents in recent years. No one can unring that bell. And an owner now knows ( since the Roberts settlement) that a significant percentage of apartments (currently estimated at 40% and rising every year) will no longer be subject to rent stabilization in only 6 years at which point income from property will be able to rise dramatically
Or as PCVST is now called (as per a post on the TA FB page and one on a Yelp review), the "Campus". How fitting. Hey, why does NYU have to schlep all the way up to the Bronx, just have their graduation event at the Oval?
"we're paying the employees to sit and check KEY CARDS at the basketball courts but I see them letting in kids who do not live there. Fine by me, can we just stop paying CR employees to do nothing?
June 8, 2014 at 4:20 PM"
Let's go guerrilla on their asses--aren't there enough commenters here to organize a posse to intercept the interlopers? That goes for basketball abusers, sun bathers, and dog walkers. Patrol the perimeter and file complaints with appropriate agencies. Take back our space. It shouldn't be difficult to distract Public Safety.
"understand the predicament and the realistic solutions"
?
MetLife ran this property as its crown jewel in a portfolio. Its value was measured in means beyond just money. And any of these owners have a huge portfolio of properties - having one that is a crown jewel or architecturally renown or ahead of the curve in terms of healthy city living while others are turning enormous profits and others having other benefits is the beauty of a portfolio. With these guys as Extell, Brookfield, Tishman, and somewhat Fortress - No one property carries the burden of sole income provider. We do not need to measure the predicament of this property in isolation as it is part of a bigger portfolio. PCVST strengths and what it brings to the portfolio has potential to be legacy and not just money churner if the new owner has any sensibility.
Ain't no chimneys in the projects!
8:32 PM Judging by the turnout for the mid-lease protests, the answer to your question would be "no."
7:10 PM
It's not worth $4.7B. That's the problem. Analysts peg it's value at $3.5B, tops. That's already due to the already over-inflated rent roll.
I have complained to management about the severe scratches on the
front doors to my building and still nothing has been done for over a month, AND, I am paying for these doors with my FOREVER MCI'S. I am just not going to care anymore and let this place disintegrate to a slum neighborhood. What a joke!
I bet the projects have better laundry facilities than we do. Certainly couldn't be worse.
My favorite part is the men who work in the buildings, blasting music and ogling at all the girls as they get off the elevators.
Yeah - nice place. Happy to send my college aged daughter here ---not.
Did we get an Mci for door scratches?
I hear many people talking about metering now as well. We'll be getting the bill for the shitty a/c, lighting and oven use.
Woohooo. All this for $4300 a month.
It seems to me the tpu and attorney general should be involved in investigating the depletion of rs units here. With the bleeding out of rs units affordable housing (whatever that is!) will never catch up.
Someone else here suggested this and the response from BK, but to explore exceptions or precedents in court to counteract inadequacy could be a way to fight back if the city was behind the effort to save us and others.
Gov. C on the tpu website claims 10,000 units returned to rs status rolls. Is this a political fabrication?
I'm curious where the stat of 25% of apts are rented to NYU came from; is it accurate? How are these apts. treated in rental histories? Could this not be a tpu investigation to delve into?
Interesting Dan G some time ago stated the end of rs here was a given. His reality take; now we're experiencing maybe the real estate wish for such.
What is BK?
There should be a full blown investigation by TPU into the rates being charged for Market R units --- Not to mention the renewal rates which add that much salt to the wound. IF they renew. There is some talk about eminent domain amongst some residents lately.
If the projects were opened up to anyone who wanted to live there I would bet you that rents in those projects would rise and the amenities along with it. The PJs are even more rent controlled the StuyTown.
June 9, 2014 at 7:53 PM
There should be this. There should be that. There should be a lot of things but they don't just happen because you think they should.
I'm the one who initially brought up the TPU after discussing with a new tenant how the tenant before him was paying $1100/month and he is paying some $3600/month.
The TPU is a gov't agency so there is a specific protocol required to generate a specific action. For, I hope, the last time, the TPU does not accept individual suggestions for audits. Their audit decisions are based upon data collected; if a particular building or landlord receives numerous complaints, the TPU would perform an audit.
The appropriate overcharge complaint form can be found here: http://www.nyshcr.org/Forms/Rent/#tenant .
The TPU will do squat about rents and renewal rates charged here. They will, however, audit cost of renovations of vacated apts looking for fraud if there are enough complaints. Maybe. (1) It's not certain that they have the financing to cover all of the 5,000 or so units that have been renovated in ST-PCV. (2) The Roberts settlement may make the issue moot for those ST-PCV apts affected by Roberts. Or maybe not. That's an issue for an attorney.
To get your entire building or several residents to claim overcharges is typical and unfair. Why do I need my neighbor to help me in what's right or wrong.
Another crooked agency in Nyc. Nothing new here folks. Like one is going to knock on the doors asking for signatures for overcharges.
You never answered the question of what is
bk??????? Why can't you answer the questions properly with form numbers if there are. Not sure there are. NP
Noone SAID THERE SHOULD BE THIS, THERE SHOULD BE THAT. We're looking for affordable homes. We're not all bankers.
BK is Brian Kavanaugh who advised the same as above when some one, maybe yourself, wrote him about tpu investigation. His response is quoted somewhere here.
Also I have read tpu is not well funded.
Given those limitations, "protocols", thinking outside the box is needed. Countless people spent thousands of dollars retaining attorneys when faced with management eviction machinations.
If the mayor & city council truly wants to prevent the erosion of rs here and elsewhere perhaps there has to be an allocation of funds for an independent investigation unit to address issues tpu cannot, and cause for a class action law suit. We don't need politico talk, but action to walk the talk.
Again, I ask, where did this figure of 25% of apts. being rented to nyu come from? If this is the case what does it do to rs rent history rolls? Or is this a black box that can't be opened? Seems to me that this has a bearing on something to be pursued. That's a lot of apartments!
Everyone here has been going around in circles and maybe's, meanwhile we're hanging on by our fingertips as the wagons are forming around like vultures, So any creative ideas or questions should be given in this forum and not shot down.
Just like you,I'm a rational skeptic. Fortress at the moment seems like a done deal unless somehow the city politicos can intervene to at least stall and figure out a negotiation tactic..
addendum, given that Dan G had said rs is a thing of the past then ta went pragmatic into the Brookfield ideology.
How do we get the word out to prospective tenants that the leases are fake, bogus and they'll not be getting the lower rent for very long? How can we spread this rapidly?
Just my three cents but city politicos don't give an F about Stuytown or the residents. I might add also that what can they actually do this late in the game anyway.
Oh they are a crafty bunch this current company we have @ our helm--
Our good friends (older 40 yo residents who left ny for work and had to return for work) were recently given a lease of a new renovated flat and not only is the rent MR but they are charged for a/c units and mdi fees (he showed me lease). Two of them, monthly. So CWC gets a rental increase of over 2500+ per month for putting in new sinks and a dishwasher , adds mci's to it and now a/c charges. What's next?
The plan is to renovate EVERY single apartment and charge as much as you can, REGARDLESS of who the tenant is. End of story.
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