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Judge Rules For Retroactive Rent Rollbacks At Stuy Town
By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 6, 2010
Modified Aug 6, 2010
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By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 6, 2010
Modified Aug 6, 2010
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As Stuyvesant Town gets ready for foreclosure, a judge has ruled that current owner Tishman Speyer and past owner MetLife must pay back tenants retroactive rent rollbacks. The Rent Stabilization association's counsel was unhappy that the definition of "retroactive" wasn't determined, because "Do the rollbacks go back one year? Four years? Ten years?"
Also, critics of the ruling point out that some of the tenants who rented at Stuyvesant Town at (illegal) market rates are wealthy and don't deserve this windfall. In other words, don't blame the building for illegally deregulated rent-stabilized apartments and trying to make a lot of money on rent! It's believed that Stuyvesant Town tenants were overcharged by $215 million; their rents are currently rolled back.
Tishman had been pursuing a settlement, but MetLife—which sold the development to Tishman for $5.4 billion—wanted to dismiss the tenants' lawsuit, claiming that "it had relied in good faith on a 1996 advisory letter issued by the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), which concluded that owners could seek luxury decontrol of housing units receiving J-51 tax abatements, so long as the receipt of the benefits was not the only reason the units were subject to rent regulation" (New York Law Journal). The tax abatements are what got Tishman into trouble.
Tagged
MetLife
peter cooper village
real estate
rent
rent rollbacks
Stuyvesant Town
tenants
tishman speyer
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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