By Stephen Witt
Several of Brooklyn’s most powerful elected officials stood in unity this Sunday with a message to developer Alma Realty: If you want the city’s help in developing a project in Astoria Queens then do the right thing in Crown Heights at the former Jewish Hospital at 545 Prospect Place, which was turned into a 700 unit apartment complex
The elected officials were joined by tenants of the building and local activists to protest Alma Realty’s recent letter to tenants that the building would henceforth on all new leases be subject to market rate rent increases, and not by rent control laws. Almsa, is able to do it because of a technical variance when they bought the property, but the officials said they need to be true to the spirit of of keeping the city affordable, and if they don’t they should expect the city’s help in any future projects.
“While the rents in communities like Crown Heights steadily rise, Brooklyn Jewish Hospital apartments represent some of the few remaining affordable units in the community. We simply cannot allow these apartments to become deregulated, and risk displacing working-class New Yorkers,” said New York City Public Advocate Letitia James.
Borough President Eric Adams said he lived just down the block for 25 years and that just as developers unify for their collective good, tenants must do the same to keep the area affordable.
“Alma Realty has a responsibility to something greater than its profit margin; it has a responsibility to its tenants,” said Adams.
Assemblyman Walter T. Mosley noted that Crown Heights has changed dramatically over the course of the last 10 years and what once was affordable is no longer.
“Many of the residents of the Jewish Hospital Apartment complex will be forced to leave a neighborhood they have lived in for years because of Alma Realty’s actions. The de-stabilization of the Crown Heights apartment will substantially represent a lost for affordability in Brooklyn,” he said.
Senator Velmanette Montgomery said that landlords cannot be allowed to decide arbitrarily whether an apartment is regulated or not. “We have procedures to protect tenants and we will make sure that they are followed,” she said.
New York City Council Member Laurie Cumbo said as the representative from the area in City Hall she will lobby her colleagues in the council to give a thumbs down to the Astoria Cove development that Alma is hoping to build in Queens unless they continue to make the Jewish Hospital apartment complex rent stabilized.
Interestingly, the neighborhood backdrop to the rally featured the extreme poverty and the growing gentrification that is Crown Heights. For example, just down the street on Franklin Avenue was a cushy cafe where well-to-do patrons overlooked a food pantry with a line stretching around the corner.
