Saturday, October 24, 2015

Reactions to the Baruch Meeting


Just got back after the Baruch meeting and pre-dinner afterward.

I'll be adding more to this post, but will be letting comments through now.

My take was that it was a productive meeting, with some high points. Several important issues were clarified, though I still have questions and doubts. That said, it appears that Blackstone wishes and encourages dialogue with tenants, which is a healthy and productive attitude to have. The company is extending its hand to tenants and we should meet that hand. Of course we have to be vigilant, and the future may show that Blackstone's currently-stated attitude will dissipate. I hope not, for all of our sakes.

Clearly, there are losers in this deal. Unfortunately, I think market rate tenants are not going to be happy in the coming years. Roberts tenants are probably also going to feel disappointed. And, yes, it seems as if condo tenant ownership is dead, so those who were pinning their hopes on that are going to be really disappointed. (BTW, this blog has always stated that the hope for condo conversion was in vain. I was never swayed by condo-conversion, nor by the efforts of the TA to fight for it. Several years ago someone with far more knowledge about these matters, a sort of insider who must remain anonymous, told me that this place would never go condo. He was right. And I reported his opinion here numerous times.)

The winner at this time is affordable housing. At least for 20 years. Unfortunately this affordable housing is limited to less than half of the units here. Effectively, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Copper Village have ceased to be a shining light of wide-scale affordable middle-class housing. But such housing still is not dead, though we need to review the definitions of what constitutes middle-class housing in New York to see if it is now less saved than apparent. While it is true that older RS tenants in non-renovated apartments were protected and still are protected by the regular RS laws, the units themselves were being gradually lost year by year as the older RS tenants moved out or died. This new deal secures 5000 units as affordable housing for twenty years regardless of tenant turnover. However, the question of what happens after twenty years to those units that will be newly rented still remains.

Blackstone promises to examine the issues of noise, MCIs, the student population and who runs the daily managerial tasks of this complex. CompassRock seems to be on life-support with not much time to live.

*     *     *

Yes, Mayor de Blasio showed up, as did Senator Schumer. During de Blasio's speech someone in the audience started to loudly voice some complaints and was eventually escorted out by two security personnel. While I'm not really a Schumer fan, I have to say his speech was perfect. He always speaks engagingly and with passion about New York and its people. A legendary politician of the old school. Sadly, he looked not that well health-wise, though it could be just age catching up to him or maybe he was just tired. I wish him well.



97 comments:

Anonymous said...

For starters we should applaud STR for standing up and maintaining this forum.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

But I have to add that I feel as if I have no choice in the matter as I live here, and my character is such that I have to comment on something or expose it, if it seems wrong.

Anonymous said...

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, STR. I love you!

Anonymous said...

If Compass Rock is on life support, I hope someone pulls the plug soon!

Anonymous said...

There are families living here for more than a decade and are mR - not fair to them and it should have been a win for them if NOT more than for us - RS here. Shame on NYC.

Anonymous said...

So let me be among the first of the Greek Chorus to weigh in... IMHO, the 500 pound Gorilla in the room continues to be the $$$$ that the owner has invested, and the deference that they pay to those who pay the higher rents. Unfortunately, that deference has benefited the dorm apartment dwellers, stacked 4 or 6 to an apartment and wreaking havoc on their neighbors below while providing the landlord with a steady $4000 a month or so in rent every month. Unless and until the playing field is leveled back to where ALL tenants receive the respect and consideration that they deserve to live in a peaceful and quiet environment. The landlord needs to understand and acknowledge that chopping up these apartments into cubicles destroys the living dynamic of the surrounding apartments, as one person's bedroom cannot exist below another that serves as living/kitchen/study/band practice/bedroom of another. The "noise" issues you are so well aware of are multi faceted, and will not be eliminated if the status quo is maintained.

I'm happy that 5000 families will continue to have a place to live for 20 years that's affordable. How happy they will be for those 20 years will depend on the course that this new owner sets for ST/PCV in the future.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>There are families living here for more than a decade and are mR - not fair to them and it should have been a win for them if NOT more than for us - RS here. Shame on NYC.<<

I don't disagree. It really should have been a win for all. But for that possibility there should have been some serious hardball being played for years. Like suing Tishman-Speyer for burdening this community with their loses here.

Anonymous said...

100% AGREE



"It really should have been a win for all. But for that possibility there should have been some serious hardball being played for years. Like suing Tishman-Speyer for burdening this community with their loses here."

The only ones fighting and outspoken for the community and property were STR.

The TA and Pols did not fight for all tenants and did not fight for the property. They did however fight against tenants who were protecting the property and community.

I would rather keep the complacent MR then the complicit TA.

Anonymous said...

Can we see the investors? Blackstone is a public company, yes?

Anonymous said...

There is something weird here. They keep saying they removed the incentive for landlords to act immorally harassing tenants out of their apartments.

I appreciate they did that, but its kind of like blaming the victim for the crime.

bit of punishment for the immoral harassers is still missing.

You know, its like if you find a wallet and keep it instead of returning it because finders keepers or say a woman's clothes were incentive for a crime, so re-dress the woman. It is weird they are not punishing the harassers. Or I should say they have not "yet" punished them.

Removing the incentive is appreciated, but the incentive is not the problem. The absence of morality, lawfullness and ethics is.

Anonymous said...

At the meeting, the rep from Blackstone estimated the student population as 100 units. Ridiculously understated. Wonder if he was misinformed. Although Blackstone appears to be well meaning I cannot fathom how they can rent out those 5,000 market rate units without NYU warehousing. Those apartments just will not rent, as prior owners found out. Cannot see how student/transient issue can possibly be resolved under this deal.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>At the meeting, the rep from Blackstone estimated the student population as 100 units. Ridiculously understated. Wonder if he was misinformed.<<

Actually he may very well be right because he is just considering the units made in a deal with NYU. There are far, far more units housing students but they are from regular rentals. That's why you see all those young people going in and out of the leasing office. The parents are typically the guarantors.

I was going to approach him at the end of the meeting to clarify this, but a crowd quickly gathered around him.

Anonymous said...

They know there are thousands of student rentals and students online acquiring occupants and they know it is illegal so they had to publicly say 100

Not a good sign they were untruthful at the onset

Anonymous said...

Blackstone did a thorough analysis of the numbers, the unit sizes, the rents, every detail. They know of the thousands of chopped apartments, the rent increases that are not kosher on those apartments, and the total number of every detail of every 3 month 9 month 11 month lease.

Anonymous said...

I have to say I feel the Roberts tenants - of which I am one, currently paying the maximum legal rent - were under-represented at the meeting which was disappointing. And, unfortunately, I also feel that the majority of the older rent stabilized tenants that I spoke with seemed either unconcerned or just not as fully aware of the plight of the MR/Roberts tenants.

I also wish there were more people echoing my comments; I was the one who spoke early on in the Q&A and made a point that this deal is neither "historic" or "momentous". As I said, only two things would qualify under those superlatives - home ownership or every unit being permanently stabilized.

I've been a member of the TA since I got here - 7 years ago - and will not longer be part of it. It at least felt good to articulate my anger and stare directly into Garodnick's and Steinberg's lying eyes as I spoke. And I stand by what I said when I brought up the owner of Blackstone likening Obama to Hitler - THAT is their overriding business ethos. This is what we're dealing with, no matter how open-minded and nice their reps there today seemed to be.

I do hope I prove to be wrong and that Blackstone will be a benevolent dictator. But the reality is that they'll have to make their money on the 5000 apartments that will be MR.

If the city really wanted to put together a deal for tenant ownership they could have gotten it done, I really feel that way.

Anonymous said...

I agree STR that there will not be a conversion, but I must have attended a different meeting than you. This Blackstone guy said that the lines of communication WILL be open regarding conversion, though there are no plans at the moment. They refuse to let this thing die!

Anonymous said...

How does the mayor's middle class victory eliminate Blackstone's incentive to double their rent income booting out "traditional" RS paying $1,600 so they can be replaced with a lottery winner paying $3,200?

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>They know there are thousands of student rentals and students online acquiring occupants and they know it is illegal so they had to publicly say 100<<

Yes, probably thousands, but, again, the official block of units set aside for NYU is not that high.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>I have to say I feel the Roberts tenants - of which I am one, currently paying the maximum legal rent - were under-represented at the meeting which was disappointing. And, unfortunately, I also feel that the majority of the older rent stabilized tenants that I spoke with seemed either unconcerned or just not as fully aware of the plight of the MR/Roberts tenants.<<

I absolutely understand where you are coming from. This deal sucks for the Roberts tenants. Also the selling point of just limiting a rent increase at 5% for 5 years after the J-51 period expires is a cruel joke. Can you imagine what a rent of, say, $5K is going to be after an allowance of a 5% increase for 5 years will be like?

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>I agree STR that there will not be a conversion, but I must have attended a different meeting than you. This Blackstone guy said that the lines of communication WILL be open regarding conversion, though there are no plans at the moment. They refuse to let this thing die!<<

Yes, that was stated, but I felt that statement was made just to calm those with a passion for condo conversion. It wasn't a statement of "we are considering that option and will be seriously looking into it." Though one never knows what will happen in the future, I would not place any hopes of a condo conversion here anymore.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>How does the mayor's middle class victory eliminate Blackstone's incentive to double their rent income booting out "traditional" RS paying $1,600 so they can be replaced with a lottery winner paying $3,200?<<

Excellent question. I wish it had been asked at the meeting. I will ask it in the very near future of Blackstone, unless someone beats me to it.

Anonymous said...

"They know there are thousands of student rentals and students online acquiring occupants and they know it is illegal so they had to publicly say 100"


Yes, I see the craigslist’s PCVST roommate advertisements (never a carpet to be seen) all the time but unless it can be legally verified that there are more than 3 unrelated adults* living in a dorm style apartment, there is nothing illegal under current NYS RS law to have official NYU/Parsons/New School dorm apartments (100 seems way too low, more like around 300 as noted in Bagli’s book) whereby the lease is in the name of the school or the thousands of other dorm apartments whereby the apartments are rented to the students directly but their parents guarantee the lease. Sad but true. Note that if there are names (I have a dorm apartment in my building, for 2 years now, NO names on the door-another dorm apartment,just one name but at least 3 Asian Parsons sudents rotate there every 6 months)on the door, there is a max of three. TS, now CWC/CR, covered/covers its ass. Ha ha. Always remember, they are evil but they are not stupid.

PCVST dorm style apartments plus the endless MCI’s approved by the DHCR shows how the current NYS RS law has been corrupted by REBNY and their bought and paid for politicians. To enforce this law and to investigate illegal short term leases would require a major DA investigation. As long as the lease churns at least yearly, they don’t care. I can’t see Blackstone reversing this since it would be an impact on their bottom line.


*CR does nothing to police this and as per a NY Times article a couple of years ago, very hard for NYC to enforce the regulation when the landlord does not give a shit.

Anonymous said...

"Sadly, he looked not that well health-wise,"


Chuck needs to wear a tie. All the time. Covers the turkey neck. Hey, we all grow old. Reid's replacment. Not a fun job.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't there but heard that someone asked in the Q & A if Blackstone would no longer pursue current CW litigation to toss out long standing rent stabilized tenants that got golub letters. I hear that Blackstone said that they would no longer pursue this litigation. Can anyone confirm this?

Anonymous said...

Some of Blackstone core fund investors who own us

A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment. The biggest investors in Blackstone's funds include the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the New Jersey State Investment Council and China Investment Corp.

Projected Profits Promised To Investors:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-blackstone-fund-exclusive-idUSKCN0J22EA20141119

Wed Nov 19, 2014 12:37pm EST
Related: Deals
Exclusive: Blackstone chases Buffett with 'core' private equity

Anonymous said...

Even if the parents of the students are on the lease the housing is through NYU McCraken (sp?) Grants (illegally). They are NYU paid for rents.
McCraken gives each student around $20,000 for housing in Stuy Town even though their parents are on the lease.

Anonymous said...

I think that Stephen Scwartzman, the bloodsucking asshole who compared Obama to Hitler, has a lot more in common with The Fuhrer than the President does. So this is what we have as our Overlird now? God help us!

Anonymous said...

I understand why all the TV news pundits keeping saying that the public is fed up with business as usual politicians. Close to 1 1/2 hrs of that meeting consisted of politicians patting each other on the back. We're just lucky there was enough time for questions at the end before we were booted out. The meetings should be about us, not about them. This is typical of what a TA meeting is like these days.

This deal cost the taxpayers a lot of money and what they got was 5000 declared safe when all these apartments were already protected by RS. MRs got nothing. And you Roberts folks...when the j51 benefits stop in 2020, my guess is you might be in a little trouble. Very little to write home about.

Anonymous said...

I'm a longtime RS tenant and I feel very bad for the MR tenants, especially the Roberts tenants. When the TA thought they were going to buy this place they were all over the MR tenants, calling them "the new stabilizers" and practically dissing the older tenants, who happen to make up most of the membership. They thought the "new stabilizers" would be their partners in the purchase. Didn't turn out that way. Garodnick didn't deliver the goods and instead sold us to a bunch of bloodsuckers. Now the TA is trying to tell the old time tenants that they saved our homes and they don't give a flying fuck about the MR tenants because they have no real use for those people any more. I will not be renewing my membership. The TA can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. They are despicable.

Anonymous said...

That is one messed up system. The Brookstone core fund is made up mostly of working class pension money. (New Jersey, California, NY too?) Blackstone takes money from American and Canadian working class people's pension funds to invest in working class rental housing promising to turn a profit off of working class people by forcing the property value of working class homes to a Return On Investment that forces the working class out to bring in upper upper middle class, an income far above 66% of the American population.

The American government is using our pension funds against us.

At the same time our city gives Blackstone hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks that are for programs for working class communities.

NYC is not investing in affordable homes. NYC is investing in Blackstone.

The American government is profiting off of the American People instead of investing in the American People.

Next time Mayor De Blasio has one of his meeting with all the Mayors perhaps they can put on the agenda an ethics review of how America is in business to profit off the American People instead of investing in the American People.

How many and who are the American pension funds investing in this real estate deal to increase the profits from hard working American working class, to increase the property cost so it is out of reach for at least over 66% of Americans but probably more like 96%, to take away social programs and infrastructure investments to favor and profit Blackstone.

In how many ways can they take all the assets from hard working Americans.

Anonymous said...

I also see it this way - We RS are screwed in 20 years or less. Pathetic for the MR as many of them are not students but families young and older trying to raise kids here. Your city doesn't give a fuck about you or the MC.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

The only potential plus I see for MR and Roberts tenants is that Blackstone is trying to seek a very friendly, if not compassionate approach to the residents who live here. This could be PR bull, of course, but we have to wait and see what the company's attitude and response will be. If, for instance, a tenant will see an outrageous increase in "preferential rent" come lease renewal time, then that has to made public and known to the politicians, the TA, and social media. We will then know what Blackstone is really all about.

Anonymous said...

The Golub was used as harassment and fishing expeditions by Salacan, Brewer, Schneiderman, Steinberg, Garodnick, all of them. To cost us money fighting against trumped up false charges.

Dropping it after harassing us with them and after issuing thousands in the beginning then this latest hundreds in 2015 is bullshit and not nearly enough what must be done.

The golub claims and investigations conducted by the TA and politicians and property management Knapp and all are dirty, corrupt and they would like nothing more than to have it be in the past and forgotten.

Sorry but no dice.

Report false golub claims and get rent abatement and damages for what they did to our lives.

Garodnick, Steinberg Marsh Salacan Brewer Schneiderman don't get to cover up their crimes so easily and tell us to just move on.

Someone recommended a website to list all the unanswered claims PCVST tenants have with DHCR, maybe that website could have another list where tenants who received golub notices can list the one they recieved. A golub claim is more than a way of stealing your home, it steals your reputation. They accused you of a crime. Making a false criminal claim is a crime!

Don't let them brush it under the rug and pretend they never did it. How many lives did they ruin with false accusations of crimes? Hundreds, Thousands?

Anonymous said...

So De Blasio went around the country on a big PR tour meeting with Mayors on a message to fight inequality and he did not address one of the biggest causes - Mayors and city administrations across the country investing city pension funds designed to evict citizens out of their homes.

The government is supposed to invest in ways to keep citizens in their homes

NOT EVICT THEM FROM THEIR HOMES!

Anonymous said...

A golub claim should not be made lightly. You were accused of a crime. If they falsely accused you of a crime sue the pants off of them!

Anonymous said...

To 11:35 -- I totally agree. I too am no longer renewing my membership and it was revolting sitting in that room for 3 hours while they all were sucking up to each other. It was a vile display of cowardice and false compromise.

Anonymous said...

Also - does anyone have the full audio and/or video of the Baruch meeting yesterday?

Anonymous said...

"This deal sucks for the Roberts tenants. Also the selling point of just limiting a rent increase at 5% for 5 years after the J-51 period expires is a cruel joke. Can you imagine what a rent of, say, $5K is going to be after an allowance of a 5% increase for 5 years will be like?"

2020 Rent = $5,000/mo or $60,000/yr
2025 Rent = $6,250/mo or $75,000/yr (actually more)

Mayor de Blasio claims that's his historic middle class victory hard fought specifically for 1,400 historic, victorious Roberts plaintiffs.

WIN! WIN!

How does it feel winning 2 historic middle class victories?

In truth, these 1,400 honest, hardworking PCVST residents comprise the most abused, most ripped off, most deceived (Garodnick-TA), most strung along (Garodnick-TA), most victimized PCVST tenant demographic.

Their tremendous, historic Roberts victory was either snatched or squandered away. (By who?)

Their opportunity to get ripped off buying an expensive, tiny-discount Brookfield condo (if the Garodnick-TA promised buy-in opportunity ever actually existed) was snatched away by Mayor de Blasio.

Garodnick-TA
These dishonest, conniving, back stabbing liars owe 1,400 Roberts tenants major apologies and numerous explanations finally telling the truth about WTF they have been secretly plotting these past 4-5 years. What happened to our deep-pocketed partner Brookfield? Were Brookfield's deep pockets empty all along? These PCVST residents have been strung along, paying up to $200,000-$250,000+ rent based on Garodnick-TA ownership promises. Were all those promises and assurances just a fantasy? Now they are priced out of affordably owning nearby area homes they could have purchased at much lower prices 2,3,4,5 years ago. Should the TA retroactively refund their annual membership dues?

Mayor de Blasio
Clearly, the 5-year-5% bone he tossed them was an afterthought. Roberts tenants paying MR can afford paying MR. They are not middle class. They did not vote for the mayor. They do not merit preservation.

Blackstone
1,400 PCVST Roberts tenants are a litigious bump in the road.

WIN!-WIN! not-not

Don't waste any more of your children's college tuition here. PCVST is over.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Schwarzman should indeed watch his ugly mouth when it comes to accusing others of being like Hitler. There is a rising sea of opinion that his business and others like it are the economic nazis or robber barons of our time and he does nothing to quell that opinion.

Anonymous said...

Well, STR you and I have disagreed in the past and I disagree now. You felt and still feel that a benevolent landlord was the way to go to preserve middle class affordability as opposed to being able to buy. And you think we have a benevolent landlord now. Right.
Well, the facts are that 5000 units have not really been saved because in 20 years at least 2500 of these (if not more) would still be under RS protection anyhow. The 5000 number has been grossly overstated for political purposes and the TA meeting was nothing more than a big political kumbaya session to make residents feel something amazing had been done for them. Not!
More importantly, in 2020 when j-51 benefits expire, all bets are off. Blackstone will not renew. MRs will be greatly at risk. Protections for those directly affected by Roberts were not detailed. But there is no reason why they should be treated differently than other MRs other than (it turns out) Garodnick was one of these & he may have wangled something special...which I think would give the other MRs plenty of cause to complain.

If we could have bought, the affordability would have been for over 6000 MRs for more than 20 years to come. Some paying full legal rent would have been able to buy too. And RS protections would still be there for non-buyers just as they would be in most any case.

As it is, the conversion to luxury will start in 5 yrs. Expect to see many more MRs forced out starting then.

Just matter of time and more details to come for everyone to start seeing that relatively speaking the emperor is really wearing no clothes.

Anonymous said...

Schumer made a lot of claims about his influence with Fannie Mae, Fredie Mac and Mel Watt (FHFA) and their influence on the final deal. Does anyone know if Freddie and Fannie are even involved in the Blackstone deal or was Schumer just looking for praise by association.

Anonymous said...

PCVST

Class Action Lawsuit against all parties involved in the golub complaints (investigating, issuing, etc)

Class Action Lawsuit against New York State for the fraudulent college campus security (the claim only 100 is absurdly unbelievable)

Class Action Lawsuit against the First Rent Claims to jack up Market Rate apartments

Class Action Federal Lawsuit against the Cities, Mayors of those Cities / States and the Administrations investing pension funds in a real estate deal to increase housing costs of the working class to acquire working class homes away from working class American citizens


http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/doinvest/pdf/AlternativeInvestments/RealEstate/BlackstoneREPartnersVII.pdf



That is the definition of "historic" or "momentous"



DITTO

"I understand why all the TV news pundits keeping saying that the public is fed up with business as usual politicians."

DITTO

Anonymous said...

I asked this question on the T&V blog, but thought it wouldn't hurt to put it here, too:

I am wondering if Blackstone is going to start tearing the place up and burdening us with more and more massive MCIs, such as new plumbing, HVAC, etc. Apart from total chaos and never-ending construction (which is never easy in a place like this as they don’t hire the most qualified labor, but only the cheapest), the MCIs would make every unit go up in rent to a totally unaffordable level for those on a fixed income. Did Garodnick, De Blasio and the TA think about that, or is it something they care not to discuss because it would take the shine off their grandstanding and back-patting?

It would hurt every tenant, but for those of us on fixed incomes it would be a death sentence.

Anonymous said...

"McCraken gives each student around $20,000 for housing in Stuy Town even though their parents are on the lease."

Your statment is wrong. EVERY NYU student who resides here is on some to die for housing scholarship? Your proof for this? The arrangement that you loosely refer to is for the NYU graduate program only. See link provided. These are the official ST NYU graduate student apartments whereby the apartment’s lease is in THE NAME OF NYU. Not the students. Not the parents. These are the subsidized NYU apartments:

“The Graduate School subsidizes the cost of housing to insure that we can offer you affordable and appropriate graduate housing near the Washington Square campus.”

There is nothing new here. As I have posted before, there are around 300 (see Bagli's book) of these types of apartments, that has this arrangement. The other thousands (the vast super majority) of undergraduate student housing apartments here are where the student’s names are on the lease. There is NO OFFICIAL NYU housing subsidy for these undergraduate students like the link for the graduate program states. Some of these undergrad students may have other scholarship arrangements. Again, for credit purposes, the parents guarantee the lease for these undergraduate students. They are NOT on the lease. Again, there is nothing illegal under the current NYS RS law that prohibits either of these two very different student housing arrangements. Sad but true. Overall, the parents foot the bills of these entitled ones during college here and when they graduate. There have been several NY Times articles on this. God, I am so tired of the misinformation posted here.

http://gsas.nyu.edu/page/grad.financialaid.mhp

Anonymous said...

I am in agreement that the Baruch meeting consisted mainly of politicians patting themselves on the back. It was not a real town meeting. More time should have been devoted to tenant questions and not just at the end. I thought that Ms.Steinberg was very defensive at times and that they all are ignoring the negative aspects of this deal, of which there are many. Am seriously considering not renewing my membership next year.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>Well, STR you and I have disagreed in the past and I disagree now. You felt and still feel that a benevolent landlord was the way to go to preserve middle class affordability as opposed to being able to buy. And you think we have a benevolent landlord now. Right.
Well, the facts are that 5000 units have not really been saved because in 20 years at least 2500 of these (if not more) would still be under RS protection anyhow. The 5000 number has been grossly overstated for political purposes and the TA meeting was nothing more than a big political kumbaya session to make residents feel something amazing had been done for them. Not!
More importantly, in 2020 when j-51 benefits expire, all bets are off. Blackstone will not renew. MRs will be greatly at risk. Protections for those directly affected by Roberts were not detailed. But there is no reason why they should be treated differently than other MRs other than (it turns out) Garodnick was one of these & he may have wangled something special...which I think would give the other MRs plenty of cause to complain.<<

I'm not, nor have I ever, placed my faith on a benevolent landlord. But at this point that's all the MR and Roberts tenants have. So one may as well see if Blackstone will be benevolent, as that is the way they are promoting themselves.

No, what I have asked for is a militant TA and councilman who will take to court any legal infractions and investigate thoroughly the strong possibilities of them in this complex. I have written about how the TA probably didn't want to investigate these infractions and take the landlord to court because it would hold up for years the sale of this complex. Indeed, Susan Steinberg kinda said that the Roberts court case took too long for the TA to hope for a winning bid being presented to CWCapital in an expeditious manner.

No, no, I'm not for applying blind faith to a landlord's kindly PR statements, but at this point legal challenges are probably very moot and would raise outcries from the politicians and a sizable segment of tenants that legal challenges would screw up this deal with Blackstone.

Atomic Man said...

9:51, what are you smkoing? Receiving a Golub notice is certainly, definitely, positively not the same as being accused of a crime.

The notice states that the tenant does not meet the requirements for a lease renewal, usually on the grounds that it's not their primary residence. Nothing criminal about that.

What ought to have been a crime is how the previous owners began firing them off almost indiscriminately in an attempt to harass tenants. If a tenant incurs expenses fighting a Golub, and proves their case, they should be entitled for reimbursement from the landlord, but sadly that's not the case. But it's laughable to think that you could sue them for sullying your good name and accusing you of criminal behavior.

Anonymous said...

Lawsuits may be a moot point as far as ever getting any justice. But getting some money back from the frauds put upon us with the myriad deceptions could be a possibility. Even just filing could give a little solace and little bit of good result. We have never stood up for ourselves. We kept taking whatever they tell us to take and yes, the meeting was a lot of them hard selling to us how great the deal is and how they themselves are.

Anonymous said...

i'm loving all of these anti-Blackstone and anti-de Blasio/Garodnick.Steinberg commentary but where were you at the Q&A session yesterday? I still feel like I was the only one who aggressively voiced dissatisifaction with the deal? I for one would love to see a sizeable number of MR and/or Roberts tenants file a lawsuit.

Anonymous said...

No more construction on the open spaces is good. Removing the hideous construction and replanting trees would be great. The commercial buildings Dan Steinberg and Marsh spearheaded through the DOB and with zoning violations are vulgar, cheesy, low class.

Anonymous said...

Cannot believe how many rent stabilized tenants have been snowed under by this deal. They think that Blackstone saved their affordable rent when the laws protect them from any owner. Some of them also do not realize that over half of the units are still market rate leaving the doors wide open for NYU. So many misinformed residents and the TA and politicians are doing nothing to enlighten them.

Anonymous said...

9:51 AM, I agree with you 100%. There should be a website where tenants can show their golub notices, appeals to DHCR, etc., and show what kind of response they got, if any. I am not tek savvy, but I'm sure there are some really great web mavens out there who could set up such a website. We need to expose and shame the people who have been persecuting and harassing. Tishman started a pogrom against tenants and CW/TA/politicians picked up that ball and ran with it. Before Blackstone starts another pogrom we should fire a shot against their bows.

Anonymous said...

http://nypost.com/2015/10/25/woman-says-new-york-city-paid-her-1m-to-do-nothing/

Anonymous said...

I felt like it was a puppet show with political mouthpieces spouting corporate propaganda, Blackstone pulling the strings and the politicians agreeing to a deal only if they can make sure they look good making the deal so they heaped praise on each other. I felt like they forget they are speaking to middle class educated people and not uneducated or easily fooled people. It really was more about them than us.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand. Did your friend on the inside say the tenant bid was nonexistent or that it was on the table but the sellers would not acknowledge its existence?

Anonymous said...

Of interest is the entire thread and especially Comment 25 and 28 (management approving the craigslist occupant subletters)

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60763-i5-k2049874-o20-Staying_at_Stuyvesant_Town-New_York_City_New_York.html

Tishman Speyer Compass Rock let Market Rate and MR students sublet to occupants while Salacan TA hunted RS doing it.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60763-i5-k2049874-o20-Staying_at_Stuyvesant_Town-New_York_City_New_York.html

Anonymous said...

Everyone of these politicians gave their time to testify and unify against illegal hotels and not one of these politicians gave their time or even any minute of thought to the negative impact of dorms to affordable housing. Dorm which wiped out 6000 affordable Stuyvesant Town apartments, chopped up by the DOB, the DOB is part of the Mayors Office of Special Enforcement to stop the illegal hotels. I do not support illegal hotels, but let's face it, the illegal dorms are a bigger problem and everyone who testified here never once lifted a finger to stop the student dorms, chopped apartments in Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town. Not one of these guys spoke up for this community against the much much bigger problem of the dorms.

DOB went so far as to say if you want to buy your apartment then you have to allow the apartments to be chopped up and the bunker to be built.

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/05/01816-96312.pdf

Anonymous said...

Stringers testimony is particularly hypocritical about illegal hotels removing apartments from the city's housing stock. What do you think the dorms do?

And Stringer goes onto say

"Median apartment rents in New York City rose by 75 percent, compared to 44 percent in the rest of the country. Over the same period, real incomes of New Yorkers declined as the nation struggled to emerge from two recessions."

So our rents rose more than double the rate of the entire country and our incomes declined and the city just made a deal projecting our apartments increase to accommodate upper upper middle class / upper class incomes.

At least Stringer hasn't come out and said Garodnick's Stuy Town deal is a good one like Maloney and Schumer have. But Stringer has not come out and said its a bad deal either. These guys are pulling a fast one. There is something else going on here, something they are not telling us.

The double talk out of their mouths is puke-worthy.

Anonymous said...

Hoylman's testimony is absurd. You could substitute the word dorms for the "illegal hotels" and get the same things tenants here have been saying for years. The dorms create QOL and safety issues, fire safety, building zoning codes, etc

Hoylman starts on page 30.

Did he ever write a testimony letter on the dorms in PCVST? Hell no.

Did the AG turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the damage from dorms on affordable housing, QOL, safety, fire safety, ....? Yes

Did the Mayors Office of Special Enforcement (comprised of NYPD, DOB, FDNY etc) allow the illegal dorms to destroy the QOL, safety, and affordable housing? Yes.

They are the biggest hypocrites. They committed the very crimes they testified against, but substitute illegal dorms for illegal hotels.

They should have stopped BOTH the illegal hotels and the illegal dorms! BOTH!

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/05/01816-96312.pdf

Anonymous said...

Seriously you have to read Hoylman's testimony. Here is an excerpt. He speaks of violating the certificate of occupancy - seriously he completely lambastes illegal hotels while he empowers illegal dorms and they are the same egregiously bad, harmful illegal acts.


Illegal hotels disregard New York City Department of Buildings Certificates of Occupancy, which decide whether buildings are safe for users and comply with the building code.

Additionally, illegal hotels violate local zoning laws tl1at separate commercial and residential use, undermining the ability of residents to determine the type of community in which they would like to live.

New Yorkers have a right to the quiet enjoyment of their homes and visitors have a right to a safe, legal place to stay. Any effort to undermine the short-term rental law would diminish the rule of law and quality of life in our city

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/05/01816-96312.pdf

It's Miller Time said...

I'm enraged! This meeting was nothing but a circus where the local pols took turns stroking themselves and telling us how this bad deal is good for us. New amenity! Oval Grief Counceling. Screw you all!

Anonymous said...

On page 71
On January 20, 2015 Susan Steinberg added her testimony and it reads as it should, harmful yet much, much much less damaging to infrastructure, to quality of life, to affordable housing stock than the illegal dorms.

Yet not a peep out of the Tenant Association on the dorms. How about taking on both the illegal dorms and the illegal hotels?

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/05/01816-96312.pdf

This is a bad joke.

Anonymous said...

You know we could have fought the illegal dorms saying we did not have the proper security for a dorm....had the Tenant Association, DHCR, NYState and CompassRock not installed college campus security and had us pay for the installation. They really know how to add insult to injury.

Unknown said...

I have to take slight exception to the assertion that anyone could know whether or not this complex would be converted, all due respect, but it's easy to say you knew it all along after the fact. I think this was a complicated matter and my impression was confirmed at the meeting that they just blew it. It seems to me this comes down to personalities, relationships (or lack thereof) and grudges, not anything beyond that. I've been part of and witnessed deals that came out of bad relationships, there's always a way if you approach it correctly.

Susan Steinberg said that CW Capital just wouldn't talk to them about a conversion, they wouldn't take a bid from them, and they wouldn't enter pre-bid discussions. This begs the question of why not? I still find it extremely hard to believe that these guys from CW Capital are so isolated from the rest of the business world and the city that nowhere in between all these theoretically powerful parties, both at the highest levels of city government and in business that there is there no one who could influence CW to open up talks with the tenants. It just makes no sense. That presupposes that some people's money is better than others. But that's one answer I heard from Ms. Steinberg, they just wouldn't talk to them. I think this deal is better for politicians and worse for tenants at the end of the day as it's likely that DeBlasio wasn't interested in a conversion deal.

The other reason that was floated over the past few days was that the value of the complex went up dramatically post crash and that it is now overvalued and they couldn't raise that kind of money, and BS on this as well. Back of napkin, if the average price of an apartment here sold for $500,000 (this is about one third of the average price of an apartment in Manhattan), you get to $5.5B without interest. If you leave 5,000 apartments for rentals, raise the price to 750K average (still way below market) you get 4.5B to finance just the apartments for sale and finance the rest through a mortgage. I'm just spitballing here, but it seems like the math is well within reach.

Furthermore, you can't use both reasons, it's really one or the other in this case.

Susan Steinberg's indignant response to the gentlemen above's questions was pretty infuriating. "It could have been a lot worse." Thanks, but so what? It also could have been a lot better, and given that she's at the head of the effort, had five years to make it happen and didn't, it's obvious she is hardly going to admit she screwed up. She also was clearly playing to the older set at that meeting, most if not all of whom have no interest in buying their apartments and are just happy their rent won't be going up. All those folks sat up front and kissed her ass.

What was also disappointing was the turnout overall. You'd think that in a community of 30,000, you'd have a standing room only situation, but not to be, and a lot of those who attended were in favor of this deal.

The horse is way out of the barn now, but I can't help but wonder what could have been if not for such inept leadership.

Anonymous said...

Why didn't Susan Steinberg oppose dorms as she did illegal hotels?

Anonymous said...

Outcries from politicians? They ignore outcries from us. They could care less. So I could care less about outcries from politicians.

Anonymous said...

Look, I'm just saying that a conversion was the best thing for us. There was such division here about that some saying that tenants buying would end this place for the middle class and arguments in favor of strengthening RS in opposition to a conversion. Well, the non-conversion scenario came to pass. And what did we get. 6000 MRs headed to the street in 5 years. And middle class life completely gone here 20 years after that. And those of us who are paying the full legal rent now got was we always had...the same RS protection. Maybe a few hundred units were spared being unaffordable if that. Because some of the long timer rents are still at 1000-1500/month. So turn over these units once or twice adding 20% each time, and guess what? They're still affordable. Believe me, this deal got very little for tenants. And the meeting was just soft-soaping everyone so that the pols and the TA could claim credit. The sad part is most people just don't know when they've been taken for a ride.
I'll agree about one thing. It's all water over the dam now. But if these new guys go bust, I hope never to hear any more arguments against the tenant's buying. The upsides far outweigh anything we're getting today.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>I don't understand. Did your friend on the inside say the tenant bid was nonexistent or that it was on the table but the sellers would not acknowledge its existence?<<

Neither. He just stated, and not just once, that the place would never turn condo. BTW, I'm sure he would smile if he read that he is, or was, my friend!

Anonymous said...



Before Blackstone starts another pogrom we should fire a shot against their bows.!!!!!

Anonymous said...

9:51 AM, I agree with you 100%. There should be a website where tenants can show their golub notices, appeals to DHCR, etc., and show what kind of response they got, if any. I am not tek savvy, but I'm sure there are some really great web mavens out there who could set up such a website. We need to expose and shame the people who have been persecuting and harassing. Tishman started a pogrom against tenants and CW/TA/politicians picked up that ball and ran with it. Before Blackstone starts another pogrom we should fire a shot against their bows.

October 25, 2015 at 4:31 PM

Anonymous said...

>>How does the mayor's middle class victory eliminate Blackstone's incentive to double their rent income booting out "traditional" RS paying $1,600 so they can be replaced with a lottery winner paying $3,200?<<

The traditional, aka unrenovated, tenants are protected by the rent stabilization laws, and those laws say that such tenants must be offered a renewal lease on the same terms as the previous lease. That doesn't change. Those apartments are part of the 5,000 affordable ones that Blackstone has to maintain. The increase in rent they might be able to get might not be worth the trouble and expense of kicking out an existing tenant.

Anonymous said...

Sooo, PCVST Certificate of Occupancy is for permanent residency - how does that translate into allowing different dorm occupants every year? Is it because the dorm apartments are furnished - so the furniture makes it a permanent occupancy? (sarcastic)

And the Maccraken is more widely used then the above tries to downplay. Just ask the students.

Anonymous said...

"This deal cost the taxpayers a lot of money and what they got was 5000 declared safe when all these apartments were already protected by RS."

According to Alicia Glen and Vicki Been, this deal didn't cost the city that much and forgiving the mortgage fees isn't a long-term, ongoing "gift" (unlike the 25-year tax abatement MetLife got). Besides, while the 5,000 apartments are currently protected by RS laws, as they were vacated starting in 2020, they would have been taken out of rent regulation permanently. Even before 2020, anything vacated would have been renovated and rented at a market rent. After 20 years, there wouldn't have been anywhere near 5,000 RS apartments left (assuming that the rent laws get renewed until then). The numbers I keep seeing are we're losing 300 apartments a year here. We all know how many renos have been done in our own buildings. Gale Brewer said that Manhattan has lost 100,000 affordable units in the past ten years.

Anonymous said...

"if the average price of an apartment here sold for $500,000"

That is just unrealistic. $500,00 would have been the bare minimum. There was never going to be anything like the old-time insider prices, and we probably would have had to pay in the neighborhood of $800/sq ft. If you check CW's rental site, you can see how many square feet all sizes of apartments are. A 1BR in ST is something like 750 sq ft, so pick a number and do the math. It would never have been $500/sq ft. And the square footage listed is just inside the apartment. A sale price could have included part of the common hallway as square footage. Then take into account what the monthly maintenance costs would have been—pretty high because of all our open space. We know the minimum CW would sell the property for: $4.4B. That's the value they put on the property when they did the deed in lieu of foreclosure, and that's the amount they paid taxes on. Why wouldn't CW sell to us? I think they were paying themselves so much to manage the place that they didn't have to do anything for a while. Then the Roberts case dragged on. Then they got sued by the Centerbridge hedge fund. Maybe something changed inside the parent company—maybe the senior debt holders were getting restless. I remember well that when the place was first up for sale, MetLife wouldn't even let us have the deal book so we could put together a bid. They sent out the offer and froze us out. My recollection is that Dan is the one who applied pressure to get us the deal book and scrambled to help us put together an offer ($4.5B, I think). After the TS debacle, a lot of people thought it was a good thing we lost out the first time around.

Anonymous said...

PCVST fought the battle on Roberts, bearing the burden of the stress and anxiety and cost of the battle, a battle that the entire tenant base city wide benefited from and now the city is bitching that PCVST is being subsidized with taxpayer dollars?!?!

The PCVST tenants are not being subsidized - Blackstone is! Blackstone is getting taxpayer dollars on apartments that by law are rent stabilized to make up for the law. Don't fault the tenants for taxpayer dollars going to this deal - fault Blackstone!

This deal is costing taxpayer dollars not because of PCVST tenants, and the only thing the city wide tenants should be saying to PCVST tenants is Thank You for the Roberts money they got - which we fought the battle for and were robbed of being made whole.

Ridiculous - city outcry over taxpayer dollars going to the deal but no outcry when PCVST tenants were robbed of the Roberts ruling by REBNY while the city tenants got the rightful benefits of the ruling.

The politicians and real estate are pitting tenants against tenants.

The taxpayer money went to Blackstone!

Anonymous said...

The world knows money flowing from Canada into the US and New York is from China and a lot of it is not clean.

Anonymous said...

Working in building management, the thing that is starting to worry me are the elevators. In my building it is the high traffic elevators that breakdown most and get stuck. With 40 elevators, we can shut some down for a period of time to give it downtime and repairs that it needs.

Here we now have 2 elevators per building that are being used constantly throughout the day/night with no downtime. Add that to the fact that there are no service elevators and frequent moving, and something bad will eventually happen.

Anonymous said...

This is like conducting a post mortem blindfolded with our hands tied behind our backs. Nothing new there, Dan and the TA have kept PCVST tenants blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs since Speyer walked away. We are the corpse being told we are saved by our elected politicians and TA after they miserably failed to represent us and are now playing CYA slapping lipstick on a pig.

STR is now being peppered with the same "middle class victory" P.R. spin accepted without question by news media, including Bagli @ NY Times. Check out Times reader comments posted to his articles. Overwhelmingly, the Times readers aren't fooled by spoon fed P.R. spin.

Anonymous said...

The conversion idea is dead and buried. Let's focus on the QOL and the problem of all these illegal dorms and illegal chopped-up units. If the TA has a shred of decency and a smidgen of genuine concern for its membership, they will get on the stick NOW concerning these problems. I won't hold my breath, though.

Anonymous said...

"Is it because the dorm apartments are furnished"

Again, these apartments (around 300) are only a very small percentage of the dorm style apartments in PCVST. Again, these furnished apartments are the NYU graduate school apartments only. There may be some Parsons/New School apartments with the same arrangements as well. Again, the vast majority (over a thousand-at least-probally many more)of dorm apartments (mostly undergrad, can be from various schools, not just NYU) here are in the students’ names, for credit purposes their leases guaranteed by their parents. Some of these apartments have just graduated students mixed in as as well, they are not all 100% student.But the impact to the QOL is about the same. Their parents buy their stuff. If furniture was provided for all the dorm apartments here by NYU, why is it that every 6 months (can be monthly as well), mattresses and Ikea crap litter both communities here? Please stop posting this misinformation, this agreement is complicated enough without it.

Anonymous said...

These defenses of the deal are ridiculous. Any low rent units turning over in the next 5 yrs would still be "affordable". Past that, just check the mortality rate. Most of the old timers (that moved in around 1946) have passed over the last ten years. I can see it by the good folks who have passed in my building. From 2020 to 2035, relatively few will units in the low rent category will turn over. For those that do turn over, there is every possibility that Blackstone will jigger things around to minimize the effect...such as lowering the rent of an existing tenant that is just barely over the definition of affordable. Remember, the requirement is they have 5000 within the definition of affordable. There is no requirement we know of about how they do this. Guaranteed, Blackstone has actuary-like statisticians who have run the numbers against the ages in either the rent rolls or voter rolls. The claim that 5000 units have been kept affordable for 20 yrs is just bogus.
The outcome of all this is:

MRs - losers
Long timers - even. Nothing gained.
Long term affordability: loser
Politicians: Winners...they've pulled the wool over again.
TA: Winners (maybe)...same as the pols.

Unknown said...

>>That is just unrealistic. $500,00 would have been the bare minimum.

My point is not that that would be the actual selling price. I was trying to use a low price to demonstrate how possible it would be to fund the purchase even at prices that low.

Anonymous said...

@ October 25, 2015 at 11:38 PM

>>How does the mayor's middle class victory eliminate Blackstone's incentive to double their rent income booting out "traditional" RS paying $1,600 so they can be replaced with a lottery winner paying $3,200?<<

"The traditional, aka unrenovated, tenants are protected by the rent stabilization laws, and those laws say that such tenants must be offered a renewal lease on the same terms as the previous lease. That doesn't change. Those apartments are part of the 5,000 affordable ones that Blackstone has to maintain. The increase in rent they might be able to get might not be worth the trouble and expense of kicking out an existing tenant."

-----

"The increase in rent they might be able to get MIGHT NOT BE WORTH THE TROUBLE and expense of kicking out an existing tenant."

Really?

traditional, a/k/a unrenovated RS
- $1,600/mo = $19,200/yr
- RS protected indefinitely ... 20, 25, 30 yrs ...

de Blasio affordable
- $3,200/mo = $38,400/yr or $19,200/yr incentive
- $19,200/yr incentive x 20 yrs = $384,000 incentive
- $384,000 20-yr incentive, then conversion to full MR

"MIGHT NOT BE WORTH THE TROUBLE"

That's what it comes down to - MIGHT NOT BE WORTH THE TROUBLE - Take away your blather about existing RS protections (which BTW are incentive to boot out RS) and the crux of Mayor de Blasio taking away Blackstone's incentive to boot out traditional RS is just hypothetical theory failing to take into account that predatory equity is inherently predatory, always hungry, never satisfied, always looking for more ...

Nobody's fooled by de Blasio. $384,000 is sufficient incentive for Blackstone to aggressively boot out RS.

Anonymous said...

Incredible that Dan and his TA hacks didn't have or exercise a Plan B option when Brookfield backed away. Maybe permission wasn't granted. Maybe Dan was over confident Brookfield would eventually buy de Blasio or Cuomo would slap him into line.

BROOKFIELD OR BUST - COMPLETE TOTAL BOTCHED STRATEGY

Anonymous said...

Gag me gag me and I wanted to throw up at that meeting!!!!

What a bunch of losers. I"m so ashamed to be part of this state and this city right now.

Anonymous said...

brookfield is still in play
trust me on this

Anonymous said...

Liars. All of them. Liars and Crooks.

Anonymous said...

If De Blasio believed this was historic and momentous he would have his PR teams get national headlines on this. He knows it is not a good deal for citizens.

Unknown said...

>> brookfield is still in play
trust me on this

How is that even remotely possible? There was a sale, it's over. What are they in play for, and why should we trust you (no offense, but you're anonymous on here)?

Anonymous said...

From what I've been reading, this so called deal sucks for all. Fix is in folks and Im ready to raise holy hell here.

Anonymous said...

"Brookfield is still in play"

It certainly is still in play.

The $5.3 billion sale price may enable Garodnick-TA business partner Brookfield to fully recover its $25 million predatory loan supporting and cheerleading Speyer's efforts to boot middle class PCVST residents out of their homes.

The only bright spot, if there is one, is that Garodnick-TA didn't successfully dupe the PCVST tenants surviving Speyer's take no prisoners war against them into bailing out Brookfield's predatory $25 million investment supporting it.

Anonymous said...

me too

Anonymous Anonymous said...

From what I've been reading, this so called deal sucks for all. Fix is in folks and Im ready to raise holy hell here.

October 26, 2015 at 8:21 PM

Anonymous said...

Exactly right.

October 26, 2015 at 11:29 PM

Anonymous said...

If the politicians can use their office to cut a deal to make Tishman Speyer mortgage holders whole then they could do the same for each and every overleveraged mortgage holding citizen. They do it for the billionaires but not for the citizens. We may not have been duped into paying off Brookfield's investment with our ourchase of our apartments, but we are paying off Brookfield and all of Rob Speyers investors with the increased over inflated property value of $5.4 billion that Blackstone will push tenants to pay for.

One way or another PCVST tenants are paying off Rob Speyers debt.

Anonymous said...

Michael Feld and Angry Questioner @ Meeting

You're apparently new here. Lots of paranoid conspiracy theorists and keyboard kommandoes abound. They don't actually show up for meetings or protests.

My take is similar to STR's. I also do not like what happened to MRs. My other big concern is that the 5,000 "affordable" apts (not affordable in my universe) are tied to Area Median Income (it is going to be going way up soon enough) and not tied to regular RS (as in keeping units remain unrenovated upon being vacated and so only subject to vacancy increase). But that was apparently not gonna happen for a number of reasons including because the stock of "affordable" apts has to remain fluid and spread across the complex, not fixed.

If I had to fix some blame for this deal, I guess I'd put some on de Blasio although I'm not sure how much leverage he had over Blackstone. As for Dan and the TA, they just grabbed onto this deal for dear life because they were terrified of the alternatives if Blackstone went away. I don't blame them for that. I also now get that were never gonna be able to break into NY RE's club. It is a club, a very private, very closed club. We naively thought they'd let us in. It also seems like the city has just given up on any real concept of affordability when it comes to ordinary working NYers earning average NY incomes thanks to Albany, specifically the GOP majority in the State Senate and our DINO governor. That's where the real finger pointing should be aimed, as Kavanagh and Hoylman clearly indicated at the meeting. Unless something in Albany happens dramatically (State Senate flips), rent regs will be all over soon enough, and according to plan.

Also, I suspect that Blackstone will be OK if NYC's RE bubble bursts again. They are huge and learned from T-S's mistakes. Not to mention that the numbers of rent regulated in ST are in steep decline and will continue apace judging by the large number of elderly at the meeting.

Anonymous said...

I'm the "angry questioner" - too funny, my wife would like that!

I think the blame goes all around but what really got to me was the lying - they had the gall to state that Blackstone worked so hard to get the "tenants approval". How they get away with acting like this wasn't sprung on them is beyond me.

Excuse the crude metaphor but to me, watching them all up there on Saturday salivating over Blackstone was akin to abused prostitutes finding a new pimp.

Also, since I wasn't aware of this blog when the Roberts decision and settlements came down, was there outcry over Garodnick's law firm raking in millions from that? However "above board" it was, it's still is a red flag ethically speaking.

Anonymous said...

7:43 of course Blackstone is ok with the bubble bursting again. The first time around they caused the bubble to burst and they made out quite well - their companies and their salaries / bonuses. They are causing the next bubble burst and will again make out quite well with the laws and incumbents who served them well the first time.

Cuomo and Mulrow long ago declared their mission is to rid NY of rentals and replace it with homewoners.

They try to say that is good for people to advance them. It is bullshit, as all they are doing is forcing the public to join their Wall Street mortgage schemes.

No thank you to that.

The public wised up to the mortgage scams and have less and less interest in being "homeowners" even coming up with alternative living in "tiny homes' that are mortgage free. Mortgage Free and Clear of Wall Street is the only way to live a quality life.

All their advertising to brainwash the public calling it the "American dream" is bullshit to get the public to invest money into Wall Street's schemes.

The American dream is freedom, liberty, healthy quality of life for us and a better one for our kids and their kids after that and so on. We had just that here in PCVST for 4 generations before Cuomo got his grubby greedy greasy hands on NYC and PCVST.

4 Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town generations lived peaceful, high quality of life RENTING!

A business model that served the people well.

But the politicians serve REBNY and Wall Street billionaires so they obliterated Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town, by choosing not to write laws to keep the community, property and family homes intact.

Anonymous said...

Me again, Angry Questioner. Our goose was cooked when Bloomberg stepped aside so that one of his best friends and advisers could purchase the place from MetLife for approx $6 Billion.

Nobody knows what the secret agreement between CWCap and T-S, but CWCap was raking in $600,000/month in mgmt fees and found a formula for $$$ success in throwing out the luxury housing strategy and settling instead on dormifying ST-PCV. They weren't about to sell to us. CWCap just about made back the original $6 B on this deal and a sizable chunk of that ($1.something Billion?) will be going to themselves for "fees" or whatever BS they made up. There was not much the TA or city could do to change that. The victory they can claim is keeping the place whole and preventing open spaces from being built upon. The rest of the deal is not much of a victory for about half of ST-PCV for reasons I gave above.

As for Roberts. Like most class actions, the big chunk of change went to the attorneys. A pretty good amount to the original plaintiffs. But as the tenants' attorney said after the settlement was announced, he and the plaintiffs were only after past damages, not looking towards the future. I suspect that even caught a lot of the pols off guard.