Stuy Town settlement could bring rent hikes for some tenants

Yesterday’s Stuyvesant Town deal could come with a bit of a surprise. The agreement, which brought an end to litigation over rent decontrol at the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex, and was worth about $147 million for tenants, could actually increase rents substantially for some residents, Crain’s reported.

CWCapital, the special servicer that controls the two trusts that own Stuy Town, told Crain’s that about 1,800 units of the 11,000 total now have two rent options. First, there’s a market rate rent; second, a rent derived from how many times the unit was vacated and the increases that it now has due under city regulations. Roughly 720 of the units will go back to market rate, which has the potential of adding hundreds of dollars of rent to the units each month, Crain’s said.

Andrew MacArthur, managing director of CWCapital, told Crain’s that “there will be a universe of people whose rents don’t go up at all, then there’s some that probably get a small bump, then there are others who get some amount more than that.” Specific figures were not available.

“I am concerned about people who had an expectation that their rent had settled at a certain place and may be wholly unprepared for the increases this agreement allows,” City Council Member Dan Gardonick, who lives in Stuy Town, told Crain’s. [Crain’s] — Zachary Kussin