BP MARKOWITZ JOINS TIVOLI TOWERS TENANTS TO CELEBRATE MITCHELL-LAMA VICTORY

State Supreme Court upholds HPD decision; building in need of repairs.

1:00 P.M.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5
TIVOLI TOWERS
49-57 CROWN STREET
BETWEEN WASHINGTON & FRANKLIN AVENUES
CROWN HEIGHTS BROOKLYN

On Tuesday, December 5, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will join State Senator Carl Andrews, City Councilwoman Leticia James, representatives from the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, and Tenants and Neighbors, to congratulate the Tivoli Towers Tenants Association on the recent legal victory that keeps the development in the Mitchell-Lama program until the year 2024.

In 2005, after discovering Tivoli Towers was to be sold, tenants mobilized and with the help of Borough President Markowitz, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, and the law firm of Collins, Dobkins, and Miller, unearthed a mandate in the original deed that requires that the building remain in the Mitchell-Lama program until the year 2024. This past summer an administrative decision by the New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) supported the tenant’s findings.

But the fight to keep Tivoli Towers in the Mitchell-Lama program was not over. A lawsuit filed by the building’s prospective owner once again put the fate of Tivoli Towers in question. Last week the Manhattan State Supreme Court upheld the administrative decision made by HPD to enforce a restrictive covenant which prevents a buyout from the Mitchell-Lama program at this time.

The court's decision is a great victory for the tenants of Tivoli Towers and a testament to the work of the Mitchell-Lama Task Force, created by Borough President Markowitz in 2003, and the city’s housing advocacy community. Defenders of the Mitchell-Lama program are energized by the decision and encouraged by HPD’s commitment to enforcing covenants that would keep developments in the Mitchell-Lama program.

Although the tenants of Tivoli Towers are comforted by their court victory many of the building’s units are in a state of disrepair. Immediately following the press conference some Tivoli Towers residents will open their homes to expose some of the more than 100 open violations issued by HPD.