LES Tenants Rally Against Rent Hikes

LOWER EAST SIDE/CHINATOWN, NY — A landlord-tenant dispute is heating up on the Lower East Side.

More than two dozen tenants and tenants' advocates rallied in front of landlord Eric Chan's office in Chinatown, claiming he is attempting to push out tenants destabilizing units at two tenement buildings, 229 and 231 Henry Street.

WFCC Realty Corp., the company that owns the buildings, and rent-stabilized tenants have gone back-and-forth in courts, arguing whether the owner can prove there was "substantial rehabilitation" in 75 percent of the building under the state rules to allow for destabilization. Tenants won in appeals court, court papers show. Now, the case returns to housing court, Ning said.

"This guy's really trying to spread these kinds of bad practices beyond Chinatown," said Ning, with the Chinese Staff and Workers Association who organized the Wednesday rally with three Henry Street buildings tenants' associations.

"For us, it's not right," Ning said.

More than two dozen rallied, chanting in Mandarin, "Stop harassment, stop eviction" in front of Chan's office on Canal and Mulberry streets.

One tenant, Shui Y. Gao-Cheung, was told to move out or otherwise her stuff would be thrown away about two years ago, she told Patch in Fujianese, interpreted by tenants' activist Vincent Cao.

Gao-Cheung, who is in her 80s, lives alone after her husband died, she said. Her name was not on the rent-stabilized lease, sparking difficulties to keep the below-market-rate home she has lived in for three decades.

She doesn't speak English and she has health problems, including hearing issues — making it all the more difficult, she added, through Cao.

Chan is associated with at least 14 buildings across the boroughs, according to a database from tenants rights group JustFix.nyc.

Down the block at another building where he is the landlord, 199 Henry St., Ning said there is ongoing litigation regarding attempts to raise tenants' preferential rent to the legal rent in three apartments — a practice tenants' advocates have criticized.

The new rent laws now only allow for raising rents to the legal rent from preferential rent when a tenant moves out, though there is still uncertainty about how it is applied and concerns landlords will try to convince tenants paying preferential rent to move out.

The rally comes in the wake of sweeping rent reform aimed at protecting rent-regulated tenants, which landlord groups have sued over.

Chan did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

This article has been updated with the correct address for a Henry Street building. The third building of tenants who rallied Wednesday is at 199 Henry St., not 119.