Letter to DCAS Regarding City Office Space Leases

Mr. Donald P. Brosen, Acting Commissioner
NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services
One Centre Street, 17th Floor South
New York, NY 10007

Dear Commissioner Brosen:

I am writing to urge the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to review its current lease agreements with Berkshire Equity, LLC, and any other companies of which David Bistricer is a principal owner.

In an effort to improve the living conditions of tenants across the City, the Public Advocate’s Office has created a list of landlords responsible for residential buildings with numerous building maintenance code violations as identified by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”). The purpose of this list is to raise public awareness about and encourage landlords to remedy hazardous building code violations. Mr. Bistricer is a principal owner of the Flatbush Gardens complex, a 59 building development of residential multiple- family dwellings in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. According to HPD, the buildings in the Flatbush Gardens Complex have accumulated thousands of housing code violations. Since November 2005, HPD has taken action to repair imminently hazardous conditions through its Emergency Repair Program after Mr. Bristricer failed to make the necessary repairs. Moreover, between 2007 and 2010, Mr. Bistricer’s number of serious housing maintenance code violations has increased significantly.

In addition to the Flatbush Gardens properties, Mr. Bistricer is a principal owner of Berkshire Equity, LLC, which leases over $200 million in office space to the City of New York. It is especially troubling that one of the lease agreements provides office space to the New York Housing Court located in Kings County – ironically the entity responsible for adjudicating housing code violations.

I am concerned that the City of New York is conducting business worth hundreds of millions of dollars with an individual responsible for the dangerous living conditions affecting thousands of New Yorkers. As the City’s leases in properties owned by Berkshire Equity expire, I urge you to consider what steps the City, as a commercial tenant of a considerable size, might take to improve conditions for residential tenants of Flatbush Gardens. Steps might include anything from rendering future lease renewals contingent upon significant demonstrated efforts to improve conditions to refusing to renew leases.

Further, I recommend that as the City considers its property leases going forward, the City evaluate a potential landlord’s other holdings to identify and respond appropriately to landlords that are responsible for hazardous conditions in residential or other commercial properties.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or my Director of Land Use.

Thank you in advance for your timely response to this letter.


Sincerely,

Bill de Blasio
Public Advocate for the City of New York