Tenants of the five Riverside Buildings rallied on Wednesday to urge the owner Pinnacle Group to address chronic neglect that has left the Brooklyn Heights rent-stabilized buildings in dire condition.
Tenants said they live with rodent mite infestations, leaks, mold, and collapsing ceilings and staircases. Some tenants have gotten body rashes as they continue to deal with heat failure, water shutoffs and other unsafe conditions.
The five landmarked Riverside buildings are made up of 156 rent-stabilized apartments and eight commercial units at 10, 20 and 30 Columbia Pl. and 24 and 32 Joralemon St.
“We are not asking for anything luxurious but to have a home that’s adequate to be able to sleep, eat, bathe, and to not worry about mice getting into our food," said Farhia Hagi, a Riverside tenant.
Hagi said the mice problem is so bad, her daughter started naming them. When she complained about the rodents, the owner told her to get a cat, Hagi said.
"We’re humans, not just units," she said. "We are humans, tenants, mothers, daughters, grandmothers who deserve water that’s not brown and stairs that are safe to climb."
Pinnacle and the firm's Chief Executive Officer Joel Wiener recently filed a preliminary offering plan for Riverside’s condominium conversion, commonly known as a “red herring.” Although the plan is characterized as a "non-eviction" conversion, such conversions are commonly used to pressure long-term rent-stabilized tenants out of their homes through refusal of renewals, buyout campaigns, and prolonged neglect, tenants and housing advocates said.
“Pinnacle Group is attempting to displace longtime tenants in one of the last remaining bastions of affordable and rent-stabilized housing in Brooklyn Heights amid an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis," said City Council Member Lincoln Restler. "The company’s unconscionable treatment of their tenants at the Riverside Apartments is part of a broader pattern of neglect and abuse that’s designed to push tenants out."
In the 1990s, the Riverside Tenants Association won a lawsuit against the landlord after the central courtyard was illegally paved as a parking lot, securing a rent freeze for tenants. There are 20 families are now fighting eviction in housing court after the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal overturned a rent freeze which allowed the landlord to claim significant rental arrears. The RTA's attorney is filing an Article 78 in state court to challenge the DHCR rent restoration that has placed the building's rent stabilization status at risk.
State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon said Pinnacle has been neglecting this property for decades.
"I will fight with the tenants of the Riverside Buildings for repairs, accountability, and the right to stay safely in their homes," she said. "And, we urgently need city and state agencies to ensure the landlord makes repairs and to restore the legal rent.”
