FIND THE LATEST NEWS UPDATED EVERY DAY AT BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
Oscar Sotto’s Brighton Beach home has been without water for weeks. Photo by Derrick Watterson
TAPPED OUT!
Brighton beach residents claim they’ve had no running water for more than a month
BY ROSE ADAMS
At least a dozen homes in
Brighton Beach have been
without water for 35 days after
a waterline broke underneath
a neighboring property — and
the owner has refused to let
anyone come and fi x it.
“What people are going
through are absolutely ridiculous,”
said Razwan Mirza, a
bungalow owner on Brighton
Third Place between Ocean
View Avenue and Brighton
Third Street, who has
been without water for over a
month.
The Department of Environmental
Protection turned
off the water to the bungalowlined
alleyway on Sept. 16 after
one house reported a leak,
according to Mirza. Neighbors
pitched in to fund the $7,000 repair
tab to that pipe, but soon
discovered a leak stemming
from a waterline that ran beneath
another house — and
the owner has since blocked
plumbers from entering their
backyard to repair the rupture,
according to a neighbor.
“They’re not granting us
access,” said Audrey Gartner,
another bungalow owner.
Locals suspect that the
resistant homeowners are
hooked up to a different waterline
— meaning they still have
running water — and that they
may be resisting the investigation
because they have unauthorized
water pipes that they
don’t want city offi cials to fi nd.
“I think it’s an illegal
hookup,” Gartner said.
The uncooperative hom-
Continued on page 18
Arrests
in Coney
housing
scheme
BY ROSE ADAMS
Cops cuffed three Coney
Island residents on Wednesday
for allegedly scamming
their way into cheap apartments
at a highly soughtafter
Coney Island cooperative.
The suspects submitted
forged letters, birth and
marriage certificates, and
bank records to fool officials
at the City Department
of Housing Preservation and
Development into believing
they were relatives of previous
tenants at the Luna Park
Housing Cooperative, allowing
them to “inherit” their
units and skip the decadeslong
waitlist for housing at
the coveted Mitchell-Lama,
according to District Attorney
Eric Gonzelez.
The arrests come four
months after police cuffed
three board members at the
Luna Park Housing Corporation
— the body which
manages the sprawling,
five-story complex housing
6,000 people — for spearheading
the scheme. Those
defendants were accused of
Continued on page 18
Vol. 74 No. 43 UPDATED EVERY DAY AT BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
����������
��������������������������
����������������������������������������
����������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������
������������������
������������
����������
������������������������
Oct. 25-31, 2019 Including Canarsie Digest
SERVING BERGEN BEACH, CANARSIE, GEORGETOWN, MARINE PARK & MILL BASIN
/BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
/BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
