{"id":289090,"date":"2026-07-07T13:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T13:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289090\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T13:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T13:28:12","slug":"tenants-given-reduced-rents-but-sue-nys-nyc-landlord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289090\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenants Given Reduced Rents But Sue NYS, NYC, Landlord"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something struck me about the Rutland Plaza tenants\u2019 protest and lawsuit that my colleague Ben Miller covered in New York Dirt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was this quote from Patricia Walters, a 42-year Rutland Plaza tenant, referring to state funding announced in 2016 for the Brooklyn apartment complex:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you do with $96 million that you couldn\u2019t fix our building thoroughly, so we wouldn\u2019t be going through sewage issues, broken elevators, everything they were supposed to take care of?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I divided $96 million by Rutland Plaza\u2019s 438 units and got $219,000 per unit \u2014 enough for a fairly comprehensive overhaul.<\/p>\n

But Walters had her facts wrong. Of the $96 million, just $19.4 million was budgeted for renovations. That\u2019s $44,000 per unit, which doesn\u2019t go very far.<\/p>\n

It turns out that the rest of the money went to \u2026 Patricia Walters and her fellow tenants! To subsidize their rent.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think Patricia was being deceptive. The subsidies are beyond tenants\u2019 view, not cash slid under their doors in fat envelopes.<\/p>\n

Protest organizers likely did not remind them of facts that would have sapped their outrage before the demonstration.<\/p>\n

If told that taxpayers had shelled out $76.6 million to extend their below-market rents for 40 years, which the government and landlord had no obligation to do, perhaps they wouldn\u2019t have been so upset.<\/p>\n

But instead, they are biting the hand that fed them, suing<\/a> the Mamdani and Hochul administrations \u2014 for \u201cfailing to properly oversee repairs\u201d \u2014 and the landlord, Robyn Lucas-Cora, who extended their below-market rents rather than replace them with gentrifiers.<\/p>\n

When this Mitchell-Lama (then called Rutland Road Houses<\/a>) was built in 1976, young professionals earning six figures didn\u2019t want to live in Crown Heights, but now they do. The landlord could have marketed the building to them, but chose the Cuomo administration\u2019s affordability offer.<\/p>\n

A day after the protest, its organizers at Legal Services NYC, UHAB and Housing Organizers for People Empowerment sent a press release. I noticed a link<\/a> about the $96 million. It took me to the Cuomo administration\u2019s 2016 announcement.<\/p>\n

Crucially, it explained where the money went.<\/p>\n

Some $49.5 million<\/a> was for fixed-rate, tax-exempt bonds and a loan from the state. Another $2.3 million went to Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Millions more went to at least 310 tenants in the form of project-based Section 8 rental vouchers, which were used to help finance operations of the complex.<\/p>\n

Sorry, Patricia. There\u2019s no missing money.<\/p>\n

Beyond the funding used to preserve below-market rents at the five buildings, only $19.4 million was left for upgrades.<\/p>\n

It was budgeted for interior painting, bathroom and kitchen renovations, new vestibule and lobby floors, security cameras, electric baseboard heating replacement, water heaters, common area lighting, trash compactors, some new windows, roofing, roof fans, fa\u00e7ade work, water pipe insulation, landscaping and structural repairs to parking garages.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a long list for a $19.4 million job, actually, and I\u2019m not too surprised that 10 years later, tenants don\u2019t feel like they live in a renovated building. But new elevators and sewage pipes would have cost much more.<\/p>\n

Did tenants really want more upgrades instead of rent subsidies? No. They wanted both.<\/p>\n

\u201cTenants expect their landlord to keep their building safe and habitable as is the legal obligation of all landlords in New York City, which includes working elevators and functional plumbing,\u201d a Legal Services NYC spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

They might be right that property management at Rutland Plaza is incompetent. Perhaps their lawsuit will be effective as a squeaky-wheel strategy.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also possible that the underwriting from 2016 underestimated future maintenance costs and overestimated revenues, given recent inflation and some tenants\u2019 withholding rent.<\/p>\n

If rents are not high enough to keep the buildings in good condition, insured and current on their mortgage, a lawsuit won\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

\tRead more
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Assemblymember\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

With NY poised to lose billions, socialists fight real estate<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Affordable\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Mitchell-Lama rescue plans \u2014 otherwise known as bailouts<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Why real estate gets blamed for poverty<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Something struck me about the Rutland Plaza tenants\u2019 protest and lawsuit that my colleague Ben Miller covered in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50,108460],"class_list":["post-289090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-rutland-plaza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}