NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a news conference in Queens on Friday, where he announced a $2.1 million settlement involving A&E Real Estate properties to address alleged tenant harassment and hazardous conditions across 14 buildings in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"For years, A&E has operated with callous disregard for those residing in its properties, racking up over 140,000 total violations, including 35,000 in the last year alone," Mamdani said. "City Hall will not sit idly by and accept this illegality, nor will we allow bad actors to continue to harass tenants with impunity."
A tenant, Diana De La Paz, described conditions she said residents have dealt with at her building, including prolonged elevator outages, heat issues and infestations. De La Paz said the elevator in her building has been out of service for long stretches, which she said "effectively imprison[ed] elderly and disabled tenants in their own homes."
Mamdani is sworn in as NYC mayor, Jan. 1, on a pair of family Qurans. (Amir Hamja/Pool via Reuters)
"The intended outcome is safety and well-being for tenants," Mamdani said. "We today are announcing a multi-million dollar settlement with this landlord to actually rectify these violations. That is what we want to see. If a landlord cannot get to that settlement, continues to operate outside of the law, then we will hold them to account in additional ways."
City Council member Shekar Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights, called A&E a "reprehensible landlord" and said enforcement is what tenants need.
"As a former tenant lawyer myself … I’ve always said that tenants’ rights are not worth more than the paper they’re written on, if they’re not enforced in reality," Krishnan said. "Here we are today … showing what enforcement looks like."
Mamdani also announced what he called "rental ripoff" hearings across the city.
"We will be holding a rental ripoff hearing in each of the five boroughs within the first 100 days of our administration," he said, describing them as hearings where multiple agencies will "listen to New Yorkers’ needs" and use that feedback to shape enforcement and policy.
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"We’ve made it our mission to collaborate with the City to improve this building and others that were in deep disrepair when we took ownership," a spokesperson for A&E Real Estate said to Fox News Digital. "In every building we’ve purchased, we’ve invested in replacing boilers, rehabbing elevators and fixing tens of thousands of longstanding violations.
"We are pleased to have settled all legal issues with the City and have agreed upon a repair plan with the housing department that we are already delivering on. We look forward to partnering with the City to improve the lives of our residents and find collaborative ways to protect and to continue to invest in New York City’s housing stock."
Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mamdani-announces-settlement-major-landlord-tenants-describe-nightmare-conditions