Kushner Companies Tore Apart NYC Building Around Tenants: Lawsuit

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Current and former tenants of a rent-stabilized Williamsburg apartment building sued the Kushner real estate empire Monday for allegedly exposing them to toxic materials as it tore apart the complex around them.

The Kushner Companies — which President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner once led as CEO — exposed tenants, including young children, to "a constant cloud of toxic smoke and dust" in the past three years as the historic Kent Avenue building known as the Austin Nichols House was renovated into a luxury condominium, the complaint filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court says.

The disruptive project also caused floods, rodent infestations and other problems, forcing some residents to leave despite their legal rights to stay, the lawsuit says. Meanwhile, city agencies did little to nothing to help the residents despite their persistent complaints about the illegal activity, said Jack Lester, a lawyer representing the 20 plaintiffs in the case.

"These were apartments — supposedly luxury apartments — overrun with rodents, with insects, with garbage," Lester said at a news conference Monday. "The workers there showed disdain, showed complete annoyance when tenants would complain."

The lawsuit against the Kushner Companies and three affiliated firms seeks $10 million in penalties, plus compensatory damages for the individual tenants, Lester said.

A Kushner lawyer called the suit "totally without merit" and said tenants were never pressured to leave their apartments.

"The residents of Austin Nichols House were fully informed about the planned renovation and all work was completed under the full supervision by the New York City Department of Buildings and other regulatory agencies, with full permits and with no violations for these claims," Emily Wolf, Kushner Companies' general counsel, said in an email.

The suit grew from an investigation by the Housing Rights Initiative, a two-year-old nonprofit that began examining the Kushner Companies in June 2017, said Aaron Carr, its executive director. The group connected concerned Williamsburg tenants with Lester, who hired an independent inspector who found serious problems in the building, Carr said.

Kushner Companies and others filed plans with the state Attorney General's Office in April 2015 to sell the development's 338 units as condos, the suit says. The 103-year-old building at 184 Kent Ave. was formerly a grocery trade and bourbon distillery, according to a profile on the real estate website StreetEasy.

The plans were accepted for filing in May 2015 and construction started in June, creating a nightmare for tenants as apartments and common areas were used for construction staging, according to the suit.

The work kicked up dust containing dangerous materials including lead and crystalline silica, which can cause cancer, the suit says. Kushner Companies and the other firms did nothing to mitigate the treacherous conditions despite the tenants raising concerns, according to the complaint.

The Kushner Companies expected to make a $150 million gross profit from the project despite the building getting a tax benefit entitling the tenants to guaranteed renewal leases and gradual rent increases, Carr said.

"What we have here is a tale of two conflicting interests: A tenant's legal right to stability and a landlord's rapacious pursuit of profitability," Carr said.

The Department of Buildings, or DOB, and other city agencies also "turned a blind eye" to tenants' complaints about the dangerous situation as it was unfolding, Lester said.

But a DOB spokesman said there was no evidence of construction violations ever found at the site.

"Through proactive tenant-safety sweeps and in response to complaints from the public, DOB inspected the building dozens of times since 2015 and found no evidence that city construction rules were being violated," the spokesman, Joseph Soldevere, said in an email.

The rent stabilization guidelines for the building continue to be followed, and the property management team "promptly" addressed any complaints during construction, which was finished in 2017, Wolf said. The lawsuit says construction has continued to the present, but Wolf said unit owners are doing any current construction.

"The property management team is committed to continuing to meet the needs of all residents," Wolf said.

The project started while Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, was Kushner Companies' CEO, a role he reportedly pledged to leave in January 2017 before entering the Trump administration. The Midtown-based firm founded by his father, Charles Kushner, recorded more than $2.5 billion in transactions last year, according to its website.

The lawsuit isn't the only trouble the Kushner Companies are facing. Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York State Homes and Community Renewal announced an investigation Monday into whether the companies violated state laws at the Williamsburg building based on the allegations in the tenants' suit.

"Governor Cuomo has zero tolerance for tenant abuse of any kind and we will aggressively take on landlords who try to intimidate people out of their homes," RuthAnne Visnauskas, the homes and community renewal commissioner, said in a statement.

But Cuomo also bears some blame for failing to hold landlords accountable while rhetorically targeting Trump at the national level, Carr said.

The Democratic governor has failed to close a loophole in state campaign finance law that allows limited liability companies to give large amounts of money to political candidates, "which has opened the floodgates to unlimited real estate contributions," Carr said. He added that the real estate industry accounts for 10 percent of all state-level political contributions.

"Kushner is bathing in the swamp that Cuomo has failed to drain," Carr said.

A Cuomo spokeswoman referred to the record of Homes and Community Renewal’s Tenant Protection Unit, which has conducted hundreds of investigations into tenant harassment since its inception 2012, according to a Monday news release. The unit's "enforcement activities" have led $4.5 million in overcharged rent to be recovered for tenants, the release says.

The Kushner Companies are "confident" the Tenant Protection Unit "reach the conclusion of no harassment when they finish the rent review" the state announced, Wolf said.

"We understand the current political environment. Sadly, we are caught in the middle and continue to have baseless and meritless claims filed against us," Wolf said in an email Tuesday morning.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said the city needs a real-time dashboard to track housing abuses like those alleged against the Kushners, similar to the CompStat system the NYPD uses to track crime.

"We're using a rotary phone method in the iPhone age of going after people who are completely shrewd in their methodologies on displacing people," Adams, a Democrat, said.

(Lead image: Kushner Companies renovated this building at 184 Kent Ave. into luxury condominiums. Image from Google Maps)