One Brooklyn
BROOKLYN, NY, July 16, 2018: Today, Housing Rights Initiative (HRI) and Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams announced a $10 million, 19-plaintiff lawsuit, filed by the Law Office of Jack L. Lester, Esq. in Kings County Supreme Court, based on a comprehensive investigation by HRI that has found that Kushner Companies engaged in illegal construction practices in a 338-unit building at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. According to an independent lab analysis, families, including children and babies, were exposed to highly toxic and cancer-causing substances, including, but not limited to, the lung carcinogen crystalline silica and lead.
“Kushner Companies’ business model is steeped in illegality, depravity, and unending greed,” said Aaron Carr, founder and executive director of HRI. “This is a company that has shown a brazen disregard for human life and an insatiable obsession with its bottom line. Kushner Companies is not above the law, but they most certainly have to follow the law.”
In February 2015, Kushner Companies purchased the building at 184 Kent Avenue for $275 million. Its plan was to gut renovate and convert the rental units into luxury condominiums, for a projected sellout of over $400 million. However, the acquisition was likely based on hyper-speculative assumptions, since the building was, and still is, receiving a tax benefit that entitles 100 percent of the tenants to set rent increases and guaranteed renewal leases. In other words, it seems that Kushner Companies was betting on tenants to leave, when tenants had a legal right to stay. To circumvent New York City’s housing laws, it appears that Kushner Companies commenced a deliberate campaign to systematically harass its residents out of their apartments using illegal, dangerous, and destructive construction practices, namely exposing dozens of tenants to a toxic dust storm of lead and lung carcinogens. Cancerous and poisonous materials contaminated the halls, contaminated the air, and contaminated tenants’ apartments. The lawsuit is seeking $10,000,000 in compensation for the families and children who had their health and safety compromised, and rights undermined, by Kushner Companies’ real estate practices.
“We are commencing this lawsuit to secure justice for the tenants exposed to unsafe and hazardous conditions during the Kushners’ mad dash to gouge profits while ignoring the health of tenants in residence,” said Lester. “On behalf of the public, we are expressing zero tolerance for lawbreaking landlords putting personal profit ahead of basic concern for the safety of their tenants.”
This is the third lawsuit that has resulted from non-profit HRI’s investigation of Kushner Companies. Borough President Adams, who has worked with a variety of non-profit partners like HRI to mobilize tenants impacted by bad-acting landlords, spoke to the hundreds of harassment claims that have been brought to his office. For example, he joined non-profit Heat Seek NYC in December 2016 to unveil a data-driven lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society’s Tenant Rights Coalition on behalf of tenants at 178 Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville, a property that had numerous heat complaints through 311. Borough President Adams has subsequently worked with Council Members Robert E. Cornegy, Jr., Mark Levine, and Ritchie J. Torres to introduce legislation that would require the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to identify the class A multiple dwellings with the highest ratios of temperature violations to units; such identified buildings would then be required to install temperature reporting devices for a period of no less than four years. In addition to these existing efforts, he outlined his vision for a real-time, technology-driven approach to combating this destabilizing force on the City’s affordable housing crisis. For several years, Borough President Adams’ office has been working on a CompStat-like prototype of this system, but has faced challenges with cooperation and coordination between City and State agencies.
“During my tenure as Brooklyn borough president, the issue I hear most about from constituents is the affordable housing crisis and the destabilizing influence of tenant harassment,” said Borough President Adams. “We must do all that we can legislatively and through our courts to ensure our laws not only protect tenants, but aggressively prosecute violators so that justice is served accordingly. What is taking place at 184 Kent Avenue is just a microcosm of a larger epidemic of tenant harassment across the borough. It’s why we have to deploy a CompStat-type mentality to addressing affordable housing protection and preventing tenant harassment. This mission is why I’ve funded and collaborated with non-profits like HRI who use data as a weapon in defense of tenants who are losing their homes in real time. Government hasn’t been able to catch up to a real-time method to stop them. I’m fighting to change that.”
In 2015, Borough President Adams held a series of tenant harassment hearings in Downtown Brooklyn, East Flatbush, and Williamsburg. Nearly 150 unique testimonies were gathered, and his office was able to resolve roughly 50 percent of the cases by connecting them to needed services and legal representation. A number of the individuals who testified as witnesses about the housing problems they faced met with Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A (Brooklyn A) and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who conducted comprehensive intakes with each tenant. These tenants were counseled on a wide variety of issues related to discrimination, harassment, and mistreatment, including illegal rent increases, faulty or lack of repairs, and deprivation of services. Additionally, Brooklyn A has undertaken the representation of groups of tenants who testified, particularly those experiencing building-wide problems of harassment and discrimination. Other cases are under careful review for potential to bring comprehensive housing litigation.
“The Kushner family subjecting rent-regulated New York families to harmful and dangerous living conditions is all-too-common landlord behavior in New York City,” said Public Advocate Letitia James. “I commend Housing Rights Initiative and Borough President Adams for taking legal action against the shameful acts of a company that has long harassed Brooklyn families. We must continue to protect rent regulated tenants from predatory landlords, and seek the justice that these New Yorkers deserve.”
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