NYC Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the 2023 Worst Landlord Watchlist on December 13. The watchlist features a list of New York City’s top 100 worst landlords, detailed information about their buildings, violations, and more. The first Worst Landlord Watchlist was released in 2010 by Bill de Blasio, who was public advocate at the time.
With 308 buildings and an average of 100 violations per building, Brooklyn has stayed in its 2022 spot as the borough with the most buildings on the watchlist compared to the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens.
The watchlist ranks landlords based on the average number of open housing code violations issued by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Violations include heat and hot water outages, rodent infestation, collapsing infrastructure, etc. The HPD classifies these violations into three categories, A being the least severe and C being the most.
The number of violations this year was 73,866 compared to 69,018 in 2022. The worst landlord both years, Jonathan Santana, had 3,293 violations in 2023.
“Spotlighting and shaming them, like we’ve been doing on the list of worst landlords in the city, can have [a] meaningful impact to tenant organizing, legal battles, and legislative initiatives,” NYC Public Advocate Williams said at a press conference. “We can hold bad actors to account and deliver relief for New Yorkers facing unlivable conditions and declining unaffordable rents.”
Ten buildings are on the watchlist in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and East Williamsburg. David Tennebaum, number two on the 2023 Worst Landlords Watchlist, owns one of these buildings (268 Union Avenue). Tenenbaum has an average of 2416 open HPD violations.
Robert Raphael (#7 on the list) owns one building in North Brooklyn at 378 Hooper Street. David Gomez (#33 on the list) has three buildings at 880 Manhattan Avenue, 250 North 6 Street, and 520 Union Avenue. Aaron Jungreis (#34 on the list) owns the apartments at 233 North Henry Street. Steven Kashanian (#41 on the list) owns the buildings 219 Kingsland Avenue, 220 Franklin Street, and 191 Bedford Avenue.
The tenants of 191 Bedford Avenue protested on one of the hottest days of summer 2022. This building also made the Watchlist for 2022. Most of the tenants of 191 Bedford Avenue have lived in the building for twenty or more years. In 2018, after they encountered repeated heat and hot water shutoffs, delays in necessary repairs, etc., tenants reached out individually to St. Nicks Alliance to obtain advice and assistance in improving their living conditions.
Ivan Disla (#58 on the list) owns the apartments at 86 Bushwick Avenue. For this property, Disla operates under a limited liability company (LLC) called 809 GRAND LLC / 809 GRAND PARTNERS LLC. LLCs are corporate structures that protect their owners from being personally liable for the company. They allow companies to be operated anonymously.
On Saturday, December 23, NYS Governor Kathy Hochul signed the LLC Transparency Act. The LLC Transparency Act legislation was introduced by NYS Assembly Member Emily Gallagher (A3484A) and NYS Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal ( S995B) and passed the NYS Legislature and Senate in June. The hope is that this holds LLC owners more accountable and prevents white collar crime.
This legislation originally included a database of LLCs available to the public, but NYS Governor Kathy Hochul signed onto a compromise: the database is only accessible for government agencies and law enforcement.
“Unfortunately, this law does not create the publicly available database that we fought for and that the Legislature passed with significant majorities,” Gallagher said in a statement following the compromise. “Disclosure to state and local governments is an important first step but it is not transparency. Tenants deserve to know who they pay rent to, and employees should know who owns the companies mistreating them. That fight is not over.”
In addition, the watchlist includes buildings owned by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). NYCHA does not receive violations from HPD; instead, the list uses the average number of open work orders as a measurement. NYCHA has 335 developments on the watchlist and an average number of 618,310 open work orders.
Buildings may be excluded from the watchlist if they are part of a city-sponsored rehabilitation program or, in some cases, non-city-sponsored rehabilitation programs.
How do landlords get on the watchlist? Tenants must file complaints. Then, HPD will issue violations, and if they have a lot of violations, they will be placed on the watchlist.
To report bad building conditions, you can call 311, visit the HPD website, file a Housing Preservation Action in the housing court, or if all else fails, you can report the issue to the Office of the Public Advocate.
“St Nicks Alliance is proud to organize and assist tenants living in buildings owned by some of these landlords to ensure that their homes are safe and free of harassment,” said Roland Guzman, St. Nicks Alliance deputy director for community preservation. “To tenants in New York City that are facing harassment or other housing quality issues, our message is: You are not alone, you have housing rights and there are organization[s] and City agencies that can help you with your housing issues.”
To report violations in your building, go here: https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/report-a-maintenance-issue.page
View the 2023 Worst Landlords Watchlist here: https://www.landlordwatchlist.com/
The Greenline 