After facing gas leaks, harassment, and a winter without heat, the tenants of an eight-unit building in Crown Heights discovered yet another way their landlord was screwing them over.
In late 2015, after becoming informal experts in building finances and housing law, the residents found that their landlord was using what appeared to be inflated repair bills to jack up their monthly rents above the threshold that would remove their homes from the security of rent stabilization.
Fortunately, there was a state taskforce dedicated to investigating these kinds of abuses. The Tenant Protection Unit (TPU), created by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2012, was charged specifically with investigating illegal deregulation and abuses of rent hikes tied to capital improvements, known as Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs). Governor Cuomo called the TPU the state's "most important innovation" for helping tenants.
So the tenants of the Crown Heights building fought back. They formed a tenant association, filed a legal case, and held rallies that were joined by then-New York City Public Advocate Letitia James. Eventually they secured a meeting with the TPU, but were soon disappointed.
Prior to the meeting, tenants sent TPU a detailed four-page memo outlining flagrant inconsistencies in their landlord’s story. Quickly, TPU made clear they had not read that analysis. They instead told tenants that they would only pursue investigations in cases where landlords fraudulently claimed to have bought an expensive appliance, or cases where they claimed to have done work, but did none.
When tenants explained their case was more complex, TPU told them their situation was beyond the unit’s scope. TPU declined to investigate, which functionally signed off on the landlord’s story, dooming their court case and leaving their homes deregulated for good.
"We were crushed. It was really a huge blow,"" said then-tenant Ben Wolcott, who attended the meeting. "We did their work for them and they said, 'Sorry, this is not in our expertise.'"
Nearly a decade later, Cuomo, who is leading the polls in the New York City mayoral race, cites the TPU as "a priority during his time in office," and promises "he will bring that same commitment to the city as mayor."