NYC Landlord Agrees To End Tenant Harassment, Attorney General Says

EAST VILLAGE, NY — A New York City landlord that’s been harassing rent-regulated tenants must halt the hazardous living conditions inside its buildings as part of a new settlement, according to city and state officials.

Icon Realty Management was found to have harassed hundreds of rent-regulated tenants in its buildings in the East Village, the Lower East Side and Brooklyn, the New York attorney general’s office said in a statement. Authorities said Wednesday that tenants dealt with poor living conditions, including having essential services like heating and water shut off.

The Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force, a multi-agency group formed in 2015, reviewed the complaints that Icon tenants have had for years. The task force found that Icon tenants had to deal with excessive dust and debris from construction in the building. Last month, the City Council passed a package of laws meant to provide more protections for New York City residents, and to make it more difficult for unscrupulous landlords to push out tenants using illegal contraction. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The tenant task force also concluded that Icon ignored tenants’ requests for repairs and forced to them to endure “long-lasting interruptions of heat, hot water, and cooking gas services.”

Icon must pay $200,000 in penalties, cost and fees to city agencies, plus another $300,000 on behalf of the task force.

Icon disputes that it ever harassed tenants and said it is considering legal action in the wake of the attorney general’s press release.

"The Task Force's press release is completely overblown and misleading and the company is reviewing its legal actions," Ken Fisher, an attorney for the company, said in a statement. "There were some construction issues in a handful of buildings which Icon addressed over a year ago, giving affected tenants rent abatements, and changing their procedures to prevent reoccurrence."

Icon said there "were some unfortunate problems in a few of its buildings" that were addressed at the time, but denies a widespread pattern of harassment.

Council Member Rose Mendez, who represents the East Village and part of the LES in City Hall, said in a statement that Icon created “a hostile and unsafe environment for tenants.”

“Today's settlement, among other things, will ensure that ICON establishes safe construction practices and will provide rent abatement to the tenants to compensate them during the time they lived without essential services."

The Cooper Square Committee, a tenant-organizing group based in the East Village, heralded the agreement as a "big win for tenants."

"Tenants have suffered for years under ICON ownership and management," said Yonatan Tadele, an organizer with the committee, in a statement. "They've spoken out and tenaciously organized against ICON’s tactics. A coalition of Icon tenants from around the City, Icon Community United (ICU), brought their concerns to the Task Force."

Image credit: Spencer Platt / Staff / Getty Images News