Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village tenants gained a vital choice towards their landlord this week, securing rent-regulated standing for Manhattan’s largest condominium complicated.
Personal fairness agency Blackstone, which purchased the buildings of roughly 11,000 flats in 2015 for $5.4 billion, had sought to rent half of the units for market charge, whereas conserving the opposite half stabilized for 20 years.
The tenants’ affiliation for each complexes, which have been accomplished in 1947, sued the Wall Avenue firm, citing the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Safety Act. The measure mandated that any rent-regulated condominium keep that manner.
Blackstone argued that earlier courtroom choices permitted them to decontrol the units as soon as the funding group stopped receiving property tax advantages underneath the J-51 program.
However state Supreme Courtroom Decide Robert Reed wrote that Blackstone’s arguments have been “based on a misconception of the law.”
“It does not imply the existence of an automatic deregulation mandate that goes into effect upon the expiration of enrollment,” the decide dominated.
Susan Steinberg, president of the tenants’ group, lauded the victory.
“We’re getting a lot of emails from people who are congratulating us and, you know — ‘this is fantastic, wow, didn’t think it would happen, now I can stay in my apartment,’ — People are happy,” Steinberg mentioned.
The choice this week was the newest in a collection of years-long authorized disputes between tenants and its house owners.
Blackstone has not mentioned whether or not it plans to attraction the choice and didn’t return a request for remark.