“Whatever happens to Parsons Gardens so goes the rest of…
By Brendan Browne
About 75 tenants from a Hillcrest apartment complex met Tuesday to organize a fight against some of their landlords who they say want to evict them so they can jack up the rents for new residents.
“Whatever happens to Parsons Gardens so goes the rest of the community,” said Ken Cohen, president of the Flushing Suburban Civic Association, referring to the apartment complex.
The tenants, who gathered at a playground near their complex, say their landlords want them out because many of the apartments are rent stabilized.
The complex, which was once owned by a single company, has been sold in pieces over the last 20 years to several different buyers, Cohen said. The tenants have had difficulty in determining exactly who owns each building in the complex and who serves as landlord, he said.
Several tenants in the apartments, which lie on 75th Road and 76th Avenue between 160th Street and 162nd Street, have been offered about $5,000 each to get out or face paying higher rents.
Other tenants have received eviction notices in the past few months after they refused to pay higher rents, said Cohen, who is helping leading the tenants in their fight.
Cohen said the residents have been researching their rights as tenants and trying to determine which apartments are rent stabilized.
City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) has been helping the tenants organize the effort and said the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal has agreed to look into the matter.
“DHCR at long last has finally fully committed to this problem,” Gennaro said. “It is entirely unacceptable that the residents … are left in a vulnerable state or regulatory limbo.”
State Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing), officials from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, representatives from the offices of Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing) and Borough President Helen Marshall were on hand to listen to resident complaints.
“It’s a shame. People work hard and they’re living here 30 or 40 years and then they ask them to leave,” said one tenant, Derrick Walker, in a phone interview. “Where are we going to go? They don’t care.”
Walker, who has been living at the complex for nearly four years with his wife, two children, and mother-in-law, was served an eviction notice in April, he said. Like many other tenants, he has been fighting the landlord of his building, Eldad Cohen, recently in court, he said.
Eldad Cohen did not return phone calls.
Joanne Levine, an official from the Commission on Human Rights, urged residents to sign a form letter addressed to DHCR asking the agency to determine if their apartments are rent stabilized and who the rightful owner and landlord are.
Residents were also instructed to complain to DHCR if their landlords failed to properly maintain their residences. Tenants have complained that the lawns are either overgrown or lacking grass and garbage often is piled up from construction that is performed in the evening or late at night.
Tenants also say the building owners have failed to fix leaky faucets, chipped paint and broken gutters, among other problems.
You can reach reporter Brendan Browne by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 155.
