LSNYC’s Brooklyn TRC Team Helps Tenants Keep Building Rent Stabilized

With help from Legal Services NYC’s Brooklyn Tenant Rights Coalition, the tenants of 11-15 Montrose Ave in Brooklyn won a hard-fought victory in New York Supreme Court after a judge ruled that their 35-unit building was in fact rent stabilized, despite their landlords and NYC’s Department of Homes and Community Renewal’s (DHCR) arguments otherwise. The decision will keep tenants’ rents affordable and allow them to stay in their homes in a rapidly gentrifying and unaffordable Williamsburg.

In short, DHCR and the landlord argued that the building is exempt from rent stabilization because it is owed by a Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) cooperative. However, Legal Services NYC and tenants maintain that the building has always been rent stabilized because it was rehabilitated with funds from the Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Program and the Participation loan Program and is therefore subject to rent stabilization. The court agreed, finding that the building has been rent stabilized since 1986 and remains rent stabilized to this date.

A big congrats to the tenants who remained steadfast in their fight for justice and to the legal advocates involved who filed petitions, did research, and presented winning oral arguments.