Bushwick Tenants Say 6 Months Without Cooking Gas Is Part of Owner's Plan to Force Them Out

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — After six months without cooking gas, the residents of nearly 20 apartments at 36 Linden St. have received some court-ordered relief. On Friday, a housing court judge ordered Icon Realty Management, the building's owner, to install electric stoves in the gasless units within a month, according to Adam Myers, an attorney with Brooklyn Legal Services representing the tenants.

But a group of the residents still rallied outside the building on Friday, where they were joined by community activists and a representative from Bushwick Councilman Antonio Reynoso's office. Their message was clear: the gas issue is just part of a campaign by Icon to force them out so their rent stabilized units can be turned into luxury market rate rentals.

Icon spokesman Chris Coffey, meanwhile, emphatically denied that charge, arguing the opposite — that the company is investing in the stabilized units and aims to keep current residents in the building.

The cooking gas has been off in the impacted apartments since January, when the city found an unsafe condition in the building's basement. Since then, impacted apartments have had to make due with electric hotplates Icon provided.

Tenant leader Nicole Denuccio told Patch on Thursday that while Icon had cut the rent for affected residents by 25 percent, the hot plates made cooking extremely time consuming, forcing her to spend significant money on takeout. That, plus the fact that the hot plates drove up her energy bill, had negated any rent savings she received, Denuccio said.

At Friday's action, a group of residents said the gas problem was the tip of a barely hidden iceberg. They said Icon had tried to evict numerous residents after taking over the property; that it was spending money renovating formerly rent stabilized units so it could charge thousands per month for them on the free market (Myers said that once an owner has invested $30,000 in a stabilized unit, it can be legally rented at market rates); that the company was ignoring repair needs in the stately but aged pre-war building; and that its renovations had spread dust everywhere while damaging adjacent units.

"They're sneaky," said Phoenix Nastasha Russell, a five-year resident who said she had to fight off a baseless eviction notice in court. "This landlord's got to go."

Reflecting on the lawsuits and organizing that led to the court-ordered electric stoves, Denuccio said, "It should not take all of that to restore an essential service." The company, she continued, wasn't listening to residents, adding that activism "is the only way we've been able to get anything done."

Nicole Denuccio backed by fellow tenants and community organizers on Friday

But Coffey, the Icon spokesman, said the tenants' claims resulted from a series of misunderstandings.

Regarding the gas issue, Icon found a significant problem that it has been trying to resolve for six months, he said. (The electric stoves weren't ordered earlier only because Icon hoped to solve the gas issue, he said.)

Icon took over the property in September, 2015, Coffey continued. He said most, if not all, of the eviction notices dated to the previous owner. Icon has informed a few tenants who missed rent payments that there was a problem, but he said all of those situations were resolved without going to court, adding that no one has been evicted.

Coffey said Icon has invested in the building's rent stabilized units, rather than ignoring them. He sent over a list of improvements made to individual units over the past two months, including repainted and reglazed bathroom walls, the installation of a new refrigerator and new flooring, and the fixing of cracks and holes in walls and ceilings.

Coffey also said Icon has only renovated five units in the building, of which three were already market rate. (The building has nearly 40 units, of which nearly all are stabilized, he said.)

He said that when the company discovered the occupants of two stabilized units were mistakenly paying market rents, they were returned to their stabilized rate.

Most critically, he said the company has no plans at this time to renovate additional units, or convert any stabilized units to market rate rentals.

"We are looking forward to working with the existing tenants, who we hope will be in the building for many years to come," Coffey said.

Pictured at top: Phoenix Nastasha Russell at Friday's rally. Photos by John V. Santore