Now, four years later, it’s their landlord who’s getting the eviction notice.
Former Mets slugger Mo Vaughn and his business partner Eugene Schneur, co-owners of housing redevelopment corporation OMNI New York LLC, are set this week to finalize an approximately $21 million contract for the 385-unit apartment complex. Approximately $8 million of the price will be paid in cash and the remainder through financing such as low-interest soft loans.
The sale is the end result of four years of litigation by tenants, beginning with the 2002 suit that alleged Farrakhan’s Noble Drew Ali Plaza Housing Corp. illegally evicted many of them en masse and attempted to evict even more. The housing court suit became a State Supreme Court suit, and from there went to appeal four times. As the various corporations controlling the housing corporation filed for bankruptcy – thus interrupting all litigation against them – the appeals process stalled. According to Legal Aid Society attorney Mimi Rosenberg, who represented the Noble Drew Ali Tenants Association in court, this week’s final bankruptcy procedure accomplishes the tenants’ goal of finding a new, responsible owner for the Plaza.
The contract for Noble Drew Ali Plaza will go before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge James M. Peck for final approval on Thursday, according to Schneur. OMNI has purchased and rehabilitated about a thousand units of distressed housing in the metropolitan area over the past two and a half years, including projects in the Bronx and East New York, he said.
“We see an opportunity to take one of the most troubled properties in New York City and turn it around,” said Schneur, who considers it good business, not charity. “At the same time, are we making money doing this? Yes.” More important to the low-income tenants, OMNI has agreed to uphold riders on the Plaza’s deed requiring the owner to maintain at least 20 percent of its apartments as affordable to low- and very low-income families and to accept tenants making use of federal Section 8 housing subsidies. Schneur says OMNI is expecting to spend an additional $23 million to rehabilitate the Plaza, beginning this spring. The complex needs it.
“The buildings are falling apart very rapidly,” said Paulette Forbes, tenants’ association president and a longtime Noble Drew resident. “We have no security, so the buildings are being vandalized. The drug traffic is out of control,” Forbes said, explaining that the management company appointed by the bankruptcy court in May to handle day-to-day operations at the Plaza has only enough money to keep security guards in the five six-story buildings on weekdays. “The roof needs repairing. We have lines of tenant apartments from the sixth floor down to the first floor so that when it rains, it rains through all of those apartments,” she said.
Such problems have been the norm for some time. In 2003, in a preliminary injunction to stop Farrakhan from evicting more tenants, a State Supreme Court justice wrote, “Elevators remained inoperative for years at a time, heat and hot and cold water were not provided for extended periods, and the apartments were deplorably maintained, having broken walls, appliances, plumbing and fixtures; water leaks and mold, and infestations of roaches and vermin.”
