“Then why didn’t the city or state guarantee stepping in, in the event of a default?" asked Marquis Jenkins, a longtime resident of NYCHA’s Bracetti Plaza in the East Village and a founding member of Residents to Preserve Public Housing.
“I’m still hopeful that we can have what was promised–a space that will serve the residents of Lands End II until the new buildings are built. Never a parking lot,” Paula Segal said, an attorney for CAAAV.
Paula Z. Segal, senior staff attorney at TakeRoot Justice, called commercial landlording in New York “the last unregulated industry.”
The community groups have since then filed a zoning challenge through their counsel, Paula Segal, senior staff attorney with TakeRoot Justice, of D.O.B.’s acceptance for consideration of additional building permits.
“The old system enabled debt collectors and hedge funds to make millions at the expense of New York families and neighborhoods,” said Paula Segal, Senior Staff Attorney at TakeRoot Justice.
A new report by TakeRoot Justice and Stand for Tenant Safety Coalition documents the experience of tenants whose buildings underwent recent construction and the gaps in laws intended to protect tenants from the practice of construction as harassment.
"This is about more than a space heater," Pilar DeJesus, an advocacy coordinator with TakeRoot Justice said. "We need to get to the root of the problems."
“You can’t exercise housing rights you don’t know you have."
Although New York’s tax lien sale is intended to incentivize property owners to pay, it can pressure owners to sell to speculators or cut corners with maintenance, without oversight from the city and at the expense of tenants.
Rents came down for, like, a month or two, and then everyone started trying to make up for what they lost,” said Paula Segal, an attorney with TakeRoot Justice, which offers legal services to small commercial businesses.
