Park Slope Landlord Pays $100K To Settle AG Case Over Hazardous Homes

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A notorious real estate group that forced hundreds to live in hazardous conditions will pay a $100,000 penalty and dole out rent credits to tenants in their worst buildings, the New York Attorney General's office announced Wednesday.

Greg Fournier and his real estate company Greenbrook Holdings — owners of nearly 200 buildings with about 1,000 apartments across the city — agreed to pay a settlement, fix their properties and submit to an external monitor, according to an announcement from Letitia James.

“Greenbrook and Mr. Fournier forced tenants to live in unsafe and unacceptable conditions," said James, "with no regard for anything but their own bottom line.”

A Greenbrook spokesperson said to Patch in a statement that they were looking forward to "putting this settlement behind," allowing them to "focus on our long-term commitment to New York City and on investing in high-quality housing at a time when it’s desperately needed."

"We look forward to playing a vital role in the ongoing recovery of New York City in the months and years ahead," the spokesperson wrote.

James launched her investigation after Greenbrook bought a Prospect Park West property in 2021 spurring the building's tenants to organize, Brooklyn Paper reported at the time.

The building was one of more than 100 Greenbrook snapped during the brief slump in the real estate market during the pandemic, according to the report.

Tenants in market-rate units received notices that their leases would not be renewed, according to Brooklyn Paper, and once vacant, Greenbrook would renovate and flip the unit at rents three times as high.

Harder-to-expel rent stabilized tenants soon found themselves subjected to various forms of tenant harassment, according to the Attorney General and Brooklyn Paper.

Leaky roofs, pests, lack of cooking gas, and illegal construction are just a few issues that earned Greenbrook properties more than 1,200 violations from the city's Housing Development and Preservation department and 700 from the Buildings department, according to James.

Tenants of 70 Prospect Park West were among the first to organize, reaching out to tenants inother Greenbrook buildings and garnering support from their neighbor Senator Chuck Schumer, according to Brooklyn Paper.

“There is nothing more despicable than these predatory real estate equity firms trying to make billions of dollars on the backs of tenants,” Schumer said at the rally according to Brooklyn Paper, calling Greenbrook "bloodsuckers."

“They have a crisis, and they stick their teeth into it and suck the lifeblood out of so many communities, so many neighborhoods, so many tenants,” Brooklyn Paper reported Schumer saying.

As part of the settlement, Greenbrook will pay $100,000 in penalties to the city's Department of Housing and Development, as well as a $7,500 rental credit to any tenant who moved into the 10 worst properties as identified by the AG's office on of before July 1, 2021.

Greenbrook will be forced to give a 15 percent rental abatement per each day a tenant suffered a disruption to water, heat, electricity or gas access in the future.

The settlement demands the group to correct all housing violations in 22 of their buildings within 60 days.

Additionally, Greenbrook will be forced to hire a construction monitor and a compliance officer, who will become a kind of ombudsman overseeing all construction work for the next three years.

The agreement also requires unannounced random inspections at Greenbrook's sites, a "first of its kind stipulation," according to the announcement.