Everyone loves an end-of-the-year data wrap-up from Spotify, Goodreads, and Letterboxd, to name a few. But there’s another annual list worth keeping an eye on, as it might affect you more than learning that Taylor Swift was your top artist again.
Each year, the city’s Public Advocate publishes a list of landlords and buildings with the highest number of housing violations. Unfortunately, several North Brooklyn landlords made the cut this year.
David Tennenbaum, who owns a property in Williamsburg, turned out to be the city’s second-worst landlord, with an average of 2,416 violations across 20 buildings. His 268 Union Avenue building had 40 this year.
David Gomez, Aaron Jungreis, and Steven Kashanian, who own properties in Greenpoint, also topped the shameful list. Kashanian’s properties at 220 Franklin Street and 219 Kingsland Avenue had 81 and 94 violations, respectively. Gomez had four different North Brooklyn properties with violations, including a whopping 144 at 250 North 6th Street.
Gothamist reports that the top 100 offenders combined “amassed an average of 739 violations each for a total of 73,866 violations, a 7% increase over last year.”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams warned that the steep budget cuts made by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration would only exacerbate the problem, with staffing shortages at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development making it difficult to crack down on violations.
But a new law awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature could help mitigate issues with repeat offenders. Last year, North Brooklyn’s own Assembly Member Emily Gallagher and State Senator Brad Hoylman introduced the LLC Transparency Act into the state legislature, which would require LLCs to disclose their owners to the NYS Department of State.
Check out the list for yourself here.