New York City Council member Dan Garodnick, who represents Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, said a bill being kicked around the state senate ignores thousands of harmed individuals, lost affordable apartments and the law. In an interview with the Village Voice, Garodnick shreds the bill that would allow landlords who illegally deregulated apartments while taking tax breaks from the city to simply pay back their taxes and avoid further penalty. It would save landlords hundreds of millions of dollars, while tenants whose rents were illegally raised would lose their right, protected by a 2009 state appeals court ruling, to recover money. [more]

Special servicer CWCaptial Asset Management is set to remove hundreds of trees from the sprawling Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village residential complex, according to the Wall Street Journal, after residents complained the greenery posed a safety threat. The trees, which former owner Tishman Speyer began planting at the 11,200-unit residential community in 2006, allowed “for somebody of ill will to hide and potentially perform a criminal act,” said City Council member Daniel Garodnick at the time. But while residents butted heads with Tishman Speyer over the arboreal plantings, Adam Rose, co-president of Stuy Town property manager Rose Associates, said he agrees with the tenants. [more]

Tenants at the 11,000-unit Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village housing complex could see a rent adjustment in the coming weeks, according to Crain’s, as new owner CW Capital attempts to determine the value of the rents and how much in back rent current residents are due. With an interim agreement on rents set to expire tomorrow, figuring out rates is a top priority, according to City Council member Dan Garodnick, who has worked with CW Capital and has been a chief advocate for Stuy Town tenants. “For CW, determining the rent roll is critical to determine the value of the property,” Garodnick said. [more]

CW Capital Asset Management said it reached an agreement with Pershing Square Management over millions of dollars in mezzanine debt at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Coo [more]

Tenants from foreclosed Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village met with city Comptroller John Liu this week to discuss using part of the city’s $37.5 billion retirement fund to buy their beleaguered 110-building apartment complex. Liu agreed to consider the plan, which would utilize funds from the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, otherwise known as “NYCERS,” according to City Council member Dan Garodnick, a longtime Stuyvesant Town resident. In February, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said tenants looking to buy the property were on their own and shouldn’t count on the city for financial help. “That’s not what we’re here to do,” he said at the time. In addition to NYCERS, the tenants group has reached out to between 40 and 50 potential backers in drawing up plans to buy the 80-acre property, Garodnick said. One such backer is the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which lost $500 million as an investor in the Tishman Speyer-led deal to buy Stuyvesant Town for $5.4 billion in 2006. CalPers hasn’t responded yet to the tenants’ request. [Post]

[more]

New details about the financing behind the massive condominium conversion at the Manhattan House are raising questions among critics and some public officials about the long-term viability of the Upper East Side project. Documents filed with the state attorney general’s office show that in 2009, HSH Nordbank, which holds a $750 million loan on the building at 200 East 66th Street, established a special fund to help the developer, O’Connor Capital Partners, meet its monthly expenses at the property. “My concern about Manhattan House is that one day the sponsor says that they have no money and that basic repairs and maintenance cannot be maintained,” said City Council member Dan Garodnick, who, along with state Assembly member Jonathan Bing, has held discussions with the developer over the financial condition of the building. Developer O’Connor Capital Partners has insisted the conversion is in good shape, Garodnick said. [more]

CWCaptial, the financial group that took over the senior mortgage at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village early this week, broke its silence in a letter to City Council member and Stuy Town rent stabilization advocate Dan Garodnick, according to the New York Observer. Despite the special servicer’s reluctance to publicly comment on the ongoing Stuyvesant Town mortgage melee, the letter, written by Charles Spetka, president of CWCaptial, heaps praise on the council member, referring to Garodnick as “an outstanding community leader,” and promises that CWCapital will “make every effort to work cooperatively with [Garodnick] and the [Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village] residents.” Although Spetka noted that his company’s first priority is to secure the $3 billion owed to mortgage lenders, he said that CWCapital “believe[s] strongly that the underlying value of these properties is directly linked to maintaining the [positive] attributes of Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town.”

From the December issue: Those sticky summers languishing on the platform will be obsolete for future riders of the Second Avenue subway. Unlike most city subway stations, where air is sucked through sidewalk grates by passing trains, the new stations will be chilled by a modern ventilation system.

But much to the dismay of some Upper East Siders, that ventilation system will be housed in permanent aboveground utility structures situated at each end of the stations, many as large as midsize apartment buildings, rising up to nine stories tall.

As part of its first phase of Second Avenue subway construction, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning eight of these structures along a 34-block stretch of the Upper East Side. [more]

Tishman Speyer has been on the hunt for building and fire safety code violations at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, inspecting each and every one of the 11,000 units in the complex for noncompliant temporary walls. But given the owner’s well-documented financial distress, many residents and city officials are skeptical. The searches, they say, are a thinly veiled attempt at evicting longtime tenants, many of whom are rent-stabilized, so that the owner can rent those apartments at market rates. Tenants are being given little notice before inspections, said City Council member and Stuyvesant Town resident Dan Garodnick. “These inspections should not be used as a way to play ‘gotcha’ with residents,” he said. This isn’t the first time Stuy Town residents have clashed with their landlord. In May, a New York State Appellate Court ruled in favor of tenants who claimed Tishman Speyer had illegally charged market-rate rents on units that should have been rent stabilized.