Bronx’s cheapest affordable housing complex facing 77 percent rent hike

Tracey Towers, the 869-unit Bronx Housing Complex On The Mosholu Parkway, is the cheapest Mitchell-Lama project in the city, but it may not stay that way for long. According to the Daily News, the landlord and the management company that runs the towers — the second-largest housing complex in the borough next to Co-Op City — are proposing a 77 percent rent hike over the next three years in order to pay for renovations. The proposal, which includes a 25 percent bump in rent next month and subsequent increases in July 2012 and July 2013, would need to be approved by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and tenants are already mobilizing to fight it. The agency had been planning to hold a hearing on the issue yesterday, but postponed it until next month after protests from elected officials. Under the Mitchell-Lama program, landlord Tracey Towers Associates isn’t allowed to make more than a 6 percent profit on its investment, but a spokesperson for property manager RY Management said the landlord has never made a profit at all. Tenants, who say they’re okay with a rent hike as long as it’s not so dramatic, allege that the landlord is losing money because RY has wasted funds it previously borrowed from the city, all the while failing to repair elevators and problems with heating and hot water. Currently rents at Tracey Towers are at $163 per room, and the last rent increase was 6 percent in 2006. [NYDN]