Trump stopped from challenging Coney Island tenant rent reduction
A Brooklyn judge has stopped the real estate magnate Donald Trump from challenging a rent reduction order for tenants in the Coney Island complex Trump Village Apartments.
Trump Village, located throughout Coney Island and Brighton Beach, was opened in 1964 and built by Donald Trump’s father Fred C. Trump. With modest rents, a number of the buildings’ units are rent-regulated apartments. In 2006, the building owners, Trump One, expressed interest in moving tenants to a submetering system for electrical usage, allowing each individual tenant to pay for their direct electrical usage. Under the prior metering system, master metering, electric utility payments were included in the rent.
In moving from a master meter system to a submeter structure, Trump One was required to reduce tenants’ rent to reflect the removal of included electric utility payments. Tenants challenged the new rent rates arguing that Trump One used an outdated 2003 formula to determine rent reductions for electrical conversions. In an Article 78 proceeding—brought by Michael Knee and the Concerned Tenants for Equitable Submetering (CTES) — the tenants asserted that updated conversion tables were available as of 2005 and showed the median monthly cost of electricity in 2002 at $47 per month, while the median for 2005 was $59 per month. The 26 percent increase made a difference in rent reductions, the tenants further argued.
In 2008, assigned Brooklyn judge Arthur Schack issued an order requiring the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and Trump One to use the most updated conversion table, and in 2011, the Rent Administrator (RA) seconded Schack’s order. Curiously, Schack requested that the RA’s order only include named plaintiff tenant Michael Knee’s name in the caption or title of the order — omitting the tenant group CTES.