Fordham tenants call for court-appointed manager amid mounting housing violations and hazardous living conditions

The tenants, represented by the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), filed a petition in June asking a Bronx Housing Court judge to appoint a third-party administrator to take over management of the building from landlords Bradley and Ryan Zar of Point 2440 Realty LLC, alleging the landlords failed to address hazardous conditions and have harassed tenants who raised complaints.

The petition seeks to put an administrator in charge of day-to-day operations and oversee repairs. The building has more than 150 housing violations, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and six apartments are under vacate orders following an April fire and extensive water damage.

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, Assemblymember Yudelka Tapia and Councilmember Pierina Sanchez joined tenants, NYLAG and the West Bronx Housing & Neighborhood Resource Center at Tuesday’s rally and toured the apartments under vacate orders.

Sanchez, chair of the City Council’s Housing and Buildings Committee, has also sponsored legislation to reform the city’s Third Party Transfer program and warned the Zar brothers of the consequences landlords can face when they neglect their buildings.

“The Zar brothers … made a bad business deal,” Sanchez said. “They purchased this property in 2019, and then there were reforms to strengthen the rights of tenants, and that made their business model of exploitation, of displacement, that made their business model unfunctional.”

“Today, we’re here to say to all the landlords across the city: If you made a bad business deal because you wanted to exploit and pick our people out of our homes. That’s too bad. You have to respect the rights of tenants in our city, and you have to do the right thing and follow the law.”

‘No place of my own to go back to’

After Tuesday’s rally, Rodriguez unzipped the plastic seal covering the entrance to her apartment, which remains under a vacate order.

Inside, much of the apartment has been stripped down to its beams. Plastic covers her belongings, which she said she is trying to protect from further damage.

“I have never imagined at my age I would find myself with no place of my own to go back to,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said she also continues to check on the apartment because she fears her belongings could be removed by the building’s superintendent while she is gone.

She is one of the tenants who has been unable to return home since the fire.

Tenant Ephrain Cazalez’s apartment has also been unliveable since the fire. He has since moved in with family while caring for his two children.

Afterward, he said, the landlord offered to rent him another apartment in the building for $4,000 a month.

The Red Cross initially helped Cazalez and other displaced tenants with temporary housing, he said, but that assistance lasted only two days. Cazalez said he has since had to shoulder additional housing costs while waiting for a permanent solution.

Tenants turn to Article 7A

The tenants are seeking relief through an Article 7A proceeding, a legal mechanism that can allow a court to appoint a third-party administrator to manage a building when serious housing conditions are not being addressed.

The petition also alleges tenants faced continued harassment and intimidation after raising complaints about conditions in the building. Among the allegations, tenants say the building’s superintendent brought a person who they believed was impersonating a Department of Buildings inspector.

At Tuesday’s rally, the building’s superintendent filmed tenants from a distance as they gathered outside, which tenants perceived as an act of intimidation.

James Tournegeau, a senior coordinating attorney with NYLAG’s tenants’ rights unit in the Bronx, said the case has moved slowly since it was filed in June.

At the first two court appearances, the landlords did not appear, Tournegeau said. The case was approaching an inquest before an administrative error in the clerk’s office led to an adjournment, he said. 

“They’ve been sort of taking advantage of the dysfunctionality of Housing Court so far, which is partly what we’re up against,” Tournegeau said.

Meanwhile, housing violations have increased since the petition was filed and HPD recently prepared an assessment estimating roughly $2.7 million in work is needed at the property, he said.

According to Tournegeau, the Zar brothers have filed permits for work on the vacated apartments but the permits have not been approved because of outstanding fines with the Department of Buildings from previous violations, including work allegedly performed without permits.

“We’re in this limbo right now because they won’t pay the fines, and the vacate orders haven’t been lifted,” Tournegeau said. “Those folks are still unable to go back to their homes.”

A potential fast track

The case comes as Housing Court has introduced a new process designed to move some of the city’s most urgent housing cases more quickly.

In August, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration announced a Housing Court fast track through his Block by Block plan, for cases involving severe housing conditions. The expedited process includes certain Article 7A proceedings seeking the appointment of a third-party building manager.

Under the new procedure, qualifying cases are assigned a judge the same day they are filed. Once the case is served, the parties must appear within five days, with subsequent appearances and filings handled on an expedited timeline.

But 2440 Walton’s case was filed in June, before the new procedure took effect, leaving it outside the automatic fast-track process.

Tournegeau said NYLAG plans to ask the judge at the tenants’ next appearance to move the case toward trial under the new initiative.

Under the directive, qualifying Article 7A cases can be sent to the supervising Housing Court judge, who can determine whether the case should proceed through the Housing Part or go directly to trial.

For NYLAG, getting a trial date is key to moving the case forward while tenants remain displaced, Tournegeau said.

“The greatest leverage we have in this case is a trial date,” he said.