HIGHBRIDGE TENANTS PROTEST
BY JASON COHEN
Bronx tenants in Highbridge
say they are sick of
living with vermin, chronic
leaks, mold and appliances
that don’t work in apartment
buildings that the landlord is
now planning to deregulate
in order to raise the rent.
However, residents, say
they are not going down without
a fi ght.
On July 29, rent-stabilized
tenants from 1187 Anderson
Ave., 1191 Anderson Ave., 1195
Anderson Ave., 1220 Shakespeare
Ave., 1210 Woodycrest
Ave. and 1230 Woodycrest
Ave., held a press conference
demanding their landlord,
Emerald Equities, drop the
application to the state housing
agency Division of Housing
and Community Renewal
(DHCR) to deregulate 272
rent-stabilized units. Tenants
also want Emerald to fi x persistent
quality of life issues in
the six buildings.
The residents are being
organized by Community
Action for Safe Apartments
(CASA) and represented by
Bronx Legal Services’ Tenant
Rights Coalition. State Assemblywoman
Latoya Joyner,
a Democrat, is also advocating
on behalf of the tenants.
“As New Yorkers continue
to experience an ongoing pandemic,
Emerald Equities is
seeking approval to further
squeeze already tight family
budgets in a move that could
force many Bronx families
to lose their homes,” Joyner
said. “I am proud to stand
with my constituents in opposition
to Emerald’s ill-timed
and ill-conceived request. I
stand in solidarity with each
and every one of you and as
state rep., we are going to
make sure to shut this down.”
BRONX TIMES REPORTER,14 AUG. 13-19, 2021 BTR
The lawmaker told the
Bronx Times that she plans
to put pressure on DHCR to
make sure they do not rubber
stamp the approval allowing
these apartments to become
rent destabilized.
In March, tenants from
the six buildings received notices
from DHCR informing
them that the landlord Isaac
Kassirer, of Emerald Equity
Group, was trying to take the
apartments out of rent stabilization,
allowing him and
not the city Rent Guidelines
Board — which is mandated
to establish rent adjustments
for the 1 million units in the
city subject to the Rent Stabilization
Law — to determine
annual rent increases; the
tenants would also lose their
right to a lease if Kassirer
gets his way.
The landlord is using an
expiration of a J-51 tax break
to justify his efforts. However,
Emerald’s application
provides very little evidence
to support its claim that the
buildings should no longer be
rent stabilized. J-51 is a property
tax exemption and abatement
for renovating a residential
apartment building.
Kassirer and his company
purchased the buildings in
2017, but the tax abatement
was grandfathered in place.
In this case, the former owner
applied for and received 30-
year J-51 tax abatements for
all six buildings and when the
owner sold the buildings to
Emerald, the tax abatements
carried over.
The former owner did construction
on the buildings in
1991. Around that time, they
took out a few different loans
to fi nance the construction,
including a Participation
Loan Program (PLP) loan
from the NYC Department
of Housing Preservation and
Development (HPD). This
PLP loan makes the buildings
permanently rent stabilized
– a fact that Emerald did not
disclose in its applications to
deregulate.
According to Ezinwanyi
Ukegbu, supervising attorney
at Bronx Legal Services’ Tenant
Rights Coalition, it would
be illegal to deregulate the
buildings because the tenants
did not get the proper notifi cation
advising them of the upcoming
expiration of the J-51
RENT DEREGULATION
On July 29, 2021, tenants in Highbridge rally against the building owners’ attempts to destabilize the rent. Photos Jason Cohen