New York will not tolerate crooked landlords
BY RORY LANCMAN
Last week, I was proud
to stand alongside Attorney
General Tish James, tenants,
and tenant advocates outside
a rent-stabilized apartment
building in my district as the
attorney general announced a
lawsuit against one of Queens’
most notorious landlords,
Zara Realty.
For years, Zara has abused
and cheated tenants with
impunity. No more.
Now Attorney General
James, along with Gov.
Andrew Cuomo and the Tenant
Protection Unit of New York
State Homes and Community
Renewal, is bringing justice to
Zara’s thousands of tenants.
The lawsuit charges Zara
with violating New York’s rent
stabilization laws in 38 rent
stabilized buildings around
Jamaica, affecting thousands
of tenants, many of whom are
immigrant families. These
violations include charging
excessive security deposits, late
fees and advanced rent; illegally
raising rents; demanding a
key fee from new tenants; and
seeking payment for services
tenants are entitled to for free.
Zara’s mistreatment of
its tenants, as laid out in the
lawsuit, is a grievous example
of tenant harassment and a
violation of tenants’ rights.
Many of Zara’s tenants live
in my City Council district.
We have been organizing and
fighting for these tenants for
years. This community has
participated in meetings,
rallies, and protests to call
attention to Zara’s long history
of exploitative practices and
to demand fair treatment. We
even met with Zara to start a
dialogue that we hoped would
drive a change in how the
company did business.
Instead of listening to these
serious concerns and treating
people fairly, Zara continued to
take advantage of tenants in its
Jamaica properties. Zara was
determined to further its own
bottom line by harassing and
OP-ED
City Councilman Rory Lancman said that “we cannot tolerate
this type of abuse in New York,” speaking about a recent lawsuit
against Zara Realty.
squeezing every last penny out
of its tenants, regardless of the
impact on their lives.
Enough is enough. We
cannot tolerate this type of
abuse in New York. Zara must
be held accountable for what it
did to its tenants. The families
impacted by Zara’s actions
deserve justice.
This is an issue that is
deeply personal for me. I
know what it means to have a
landlord harass you to chase
you out of a rent stabilized
apartment. It happened to
me and my mom when I was
growing up. Nobody had our
backs then, but New York’s
new Attorney General has my
constituents’ backs, and we are
very thankful for that.
With gentrification in full
force in many parts of Queens,
we are seeing growing efforts
to push out tenants from rentregulated
apartments to make
way for luxury development.
When these landlords break
the law, the justice system
must hold them accountable.
This lawsuit sends a strong
message that New York State
will not tolerate landlords and
developers who harass and
steal from their tenants. Every
tenant must be treated with
respect, and every landlord
must obey the law.
Rory Lancman is a City
Councilman representing the
24th City Council District.
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