Snapshot of Gentrification: New Owners Plan to Replace Walk-up With Condos in Park Slope
Decades-long residents of a walkup building at 78 St. Marks Place in Park Slope fear losing their homes to a new development. The building, on the corner of 4th Avenue, sold two years ago to new owners, who have filed permits to replace it with a warehouse, The New York Times reported. The new owners…
Decades-long residents of a walkup building at 78 St. Marks Place in Park Slope fear losing their homes to a new development. The building, on the corner of 4th Avenue, sold two years ago to new owners, who have filed permits to replace it with a warehouse, The New York Times reported. The new owners have offered the residents money to leave, but it is not enough for a new home, said the residents.
The owners, Victor and Harry Einhorn, father and son, told the Times they actually plan to build a condo tower, not a warehouse. According to PropertyShark, the FAR on the building is 6, and the current building uses slightly less than half that. In 2002, the elder Einhorn was convicted of fraud. They also made headlines recently for serving eviction papers to a Williamsburg day care and senior center.
The New York Times said:
This is New York City in an age of real estate as oil wells. To speak of gentrification, that house-by-house renovation march, is not to do this justice. This is turbo charged, developer plotted, bank fueled, quite intentional and difficult to mediate.
The residents said gentrification has improved the area for the better and they would like to stay.
After Decades at a Walk-up in Park Slope, Tenants Fear Losing a Home [NY Times]
Photo by Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark
Update: It looks like the new owners are planning much more than a condo development at one address. In October of 2011 they picked up the three adjacent properties, 85 4th Avenue, 80-82 St. Marks Place, and 87 4th Avenue, in one transaction for $5,400,000, public records show. Except for the aforementioned permit to build a new two-story commercial property, no permits have been filed for these addresses.
“Most people rent apartments in the expectation that they will be able to live there until they chose to leave.” Unless they’re RS or RC, that’s not a reasonable expectation. The only way a non-RS or non-RC person can find a situation meeting that description is to buy something of their own, someplace where they can afford it, long term. That’s why I bought my house in the first place: I had a RS apartment, but the landlord wasn’t earning enough income to maintain the building, and I was tired of dealing with the place falling down around my ears and refused to be trapped by my RS lease. No, I couldn’t afford to buy in the neighborhood where I was renting – but I never thought I was entitled to stay in that neighborhood. So I moved and met new neighbors and learned a whole new area of town. It was well worth the tradeoff: ownership has afforded me housing stability ever since.
100 k per family is a decent amount in my opinion. But you have to look at other factors. How can these tenants use the 100k in today’s market? Where could they find housing that they could afford, with maybe some implementation from the 100k? if they want rents relatively similar to what they are paying now, they would probably have to find housing in far east Brooklyn or the Bronx. Would a landlord in Bushwick, the way things are going there now, consider them as desired renters. What about the elderly, who are receiving the SCRIE? Would a landlord want to rent to them? And what is the emotional cost of separating them from the world that they have lived in for so long? My feeling is that the 100k will not allow them to remain in Park Slope, maybe 500k would.
Ventilated are you done jerking yourself off yet? ok. I’ll wait.
Its ironic that LLs just like yourself have no problem selling to investors for big bucks and that makes the investors the bad guys. If the price points were lower or the owner stipulated keeping tenants and taking the appropriate discount this stuff wouldnt happen… oh well.
Sustainability is like communism, sounds good conceptually but not how the world really works.
MM you add so much value to Bstoner with your pics and historical reviews of buildings throughout the borough built when architecture was still really an art. But then you go and support tenants hiding behind outdated laws as if they are victims (and who often destroyed or did not care for all those buildings for so many years of which many now are a shadow of their former selves). You also love and speak out against many people who try to restore or rebuild those same buildings. Anyone who tries to stick around on someone else’s dime is a mooch and its rampant across america in many ways. Its a bit hypocritical to be a champion on both sides is it not?
Even if you had all the money in the world you couldnt save every soul. If people earn it they deserve it, if not, then GTFO.
MM loves to play the part of the bleeding heart liberal and acts like her experience of losing her job and home is the only story like this out there. The concept that because someone has lived somewhere for 10, 20, 30+ years deserves to live there is ridiculous. Considering that next to no one in Brooklyn, even multi-generational families, were the ones in that same area when the neighborhoods first started to form is shorting themselves and history. If you want to bitch about it, go ask the native americans and see if they care to hear your whining, my guess is that they don’t.
The pace of the economy globally is picking up (not economic growth but the pace of business) and reurbanization of major metropolitan areas is on the rise, and its not just in New York, because thats where the jobs are. The RS stabilization laws are a joke and its ridiculous that people get 6 and sometimes 7 figure sums to live somewhere else.
Daveinbedstuy well said.
Because it maintains diverse and interesting neighborhoods where both rich and poor want to live.
You can talk real estate stats all you want, but the artistic contributions to humanity of diverse NYC neighborhoods is unmeasurable.
Yes, the penthouse.
you are entitled to have your own opinion, no matter how misguided it is.
if i was in that situation and I was not protected by RS laws, I would move and be elated I actually got paid to move when I was not legally or morally due anything. same way i moved out of every apartment i could not afford due to increases before buying my own.
The building is rent stabilized, so they are protected from increases and dont have to accept the landlord’s offer as brklynmind said. Pretty simple since that point has been clarified. they can keep paying their rent and enjoy the yearly mandated increases, which are not controlled by the landlord, or take the money and run. Odd that the person didnt state that in the article as it makes the situation quite different.