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| File photo by Adi Talwar |
By Alex Kratz
Residents at Tracey Towers, the twin concrete high-rises (one of them looms in the background of the photo to your right) on Mosholu Parkway, are bracing for another battle with management over their desire to raise rents up to 77 percent over the course of the next three years.
In a recent letter to tenants, RY Management, which has run the 869-unit apartment complex since the early 1980s, said the current rent rates do not cover the cost of maintaining the buildings and they had applied for a rent increase with the city’s department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD). Because it was built under the state’s Mitchell-Llama program, HPD must approve any rent increase.
Tracey residents claim RY’s problems are the result of mismanagement and they shouldn’t be the ones to shoulder all of the burden.
In the past, tenants say, RY has squandered funding that tenants have paid for. A few years ago, RY received a $4 million loan to repair the roof and do some work on the façade, which was cracking and causing leaks. They paid to erect scaffolding, but instead of doing the roof and façade work, RY used the money to replace the boilers. Meanwhile, the scaffolding remains at a cost of $5,000 a month even though it isn’t being used.
