Over a year after fire, Jackson Heights tenants continue to fight for a return to their homes
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Angie Espino, a resident of 89-07 34th Ave., speaks outside of Queens County Civil Court ahead of a hearing about a lawsuit tenants of the building brought against the property owners. Tenants claim they have received little information about when they could return the building hit by a fire over a year ago. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
Elizabeth Rivas’ mother, Patricia, first moved to Jackson Heights in the 1970s, securing a rent-stabilized apartment inside a 133-unit building in the heart of the Western Queens neighborhood.
Throughout the ensuing years, the building located on 34th Avenue and 89th Street would grow to house a large Spanish–speaking population, creating a community of immigrants in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the most diverse county in the United States.
And though residents say that the communal bond began to waver over the past decade, for the past 15 months, a group of tenants at 89-07 34th Ave., have found a new reason to come together.
Well over a year after an eight-alarm fire ripped through the apartment complex, injuring dozens and displacing hundreds, a group of over 60 tenants are in a continued legal battle with the building’s landlord, demanding that they be let back into their homes and that nightmare of moving from hotels, to friends’ and family’s couches month after month be put to end.
“In one day, our homes and our daily routines were destroyed,” said Angie Espino, a resident of the apartment building and one of the lead tenant organizers. “I miss my home, I miss my neighbors, the local Mexican stores, the 7 train – and most of all, I miss my family's peace of mind.”
Last week, dozens of tenants and local elected officials rallied in front of Queens’ Civil Court building in Jamaica in support of the plaintiffs prior to a scheduled appearance before Queens Housing Court Judge Clinton J. Guthrie.
On Thursday, their attorney met with the landlords, Kedex Properties LLC, owned by Kevin, Jorge and Rosa Bolanos, to continue discussions surrounding a settlement agreement that could potentially see the displaced tenants return to the building in the fall.
The tenants are also calling for the landlord to keep the apartment configurations the same, especially in units not affected by the fire. They worry that should the landlord make significant changes to the apartment building, the units could lose their rent stabilized status and become unaffordable to those who previously lived there. The tenants are also asking for rent reductions or credits for the time they spent displaced.
The lawsuit was first filed in September. Guthrie has previously ruled that all work on the building be completed and that the building be ready for tenant occupancy by January 2023.
Despite the ongoing negotiations, many of the tenants say they want the case to go to trial, citing what they claim has been a lack of transparency from Kedex Properties about the ongoing work in the building and the timeline for their return. They hope a trial before a judge will bring what has happened in the fire’s aftermath into the light.
“We are demanding that Kedex Properties provide us with transparency on the timeline for building repairs, transparency on apartment configurations,” Espino said. “We have no say in the development of our building, but we all deserve to go back to the apartments that we left.”
Kedex Properties could not be reached for comment. Denice M. Bolanos, the attorney representing the landlords, did not respond to request for comment.
According to officials, an overloaded power strip sparked the fire that broke out around 1 p.m. on April 7, 2021. Though non-fatal, the fire burned for nearly 12 hours, sending streams of black smoke into the air for hours before firefighters could get the flames under control.
Tenants were placed by the city into temporary hotels and shelters. Some stayed for months before moving into the home of a friend or family member. Some found new apartments all together. Others have moved out of the city, state or country.
“Many of them are still living in hotels that have mold and bedbugs, and unsanitary conditions,” said Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas. “This is no way for our neighbors to live 15 months after the fire.”
“The property owner has not been transparent about what's happening,” she added.
In September, tenants and elected officials marched through Jackson Heights demanding the city and property owners let them back into the building to retrieve their belongings, according to reporting by amNY Metro. They were stopped by a group of security guards patrolling the building to ensure no one entered the space.
In March, THE CITY reported that a number of tenants were having trouble filing police reports about alleged stolen property after suspicious activity had been seen in and around the building in the months following the fire. One resident told the outlet that they had spotted a contractor leaving the building with several full black trash bags, placing them into his truck and driving off.
Then, in June, several members of First Response Cleaning Corp., a fire clean-up company based in Brooklyn that had been contracted to lead the cleanup at the Jackson Heights building, were brought up on federal racketeering and extortion charges. Federal prosecutors allege the company was run by members of the Bloods gang, who had used threats and violence to take over the fire clean-up industry in the five boroughs.
None of the charges brought against the defendants involved theft.
On Thursday, Western Queens elected officials, including State Senator Jessica Ramos, Gonzalez-Rojas and City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, called on Kedex Properties to maintain the rent-stabilized unit, citing the city’s current housing crisis.
“This is very important, not only because we don't want these tenants displaced, but because we have very little affordable housing stock left in Jackson Heights,” Ramos said in front of the court. “We cannot continue to allow fires or other natural disasters and emergencies to be used as an excuse by landlords to displace working people from their homes, disrupting their lives.”
“It's unfair, it's unjust and, I would argue, it's un-American,” she added.
Krishnan, a former housing attorney, called the tenants’ situation a “failure of our housing system.”
“You would think every city agency, every government official would descend upon this situation to protect the tenants and get them home as quickly as possible,” he said. “But the truth of the matter is, as we see right now, this is when tenants face the most unjust situations, when they're the least protected. It is unacceptable, unimaginable that the tenants of 89 Street have still been out of their home for over a year at this point.”
“When we say the laws are broken, this is what we mean, because it doesn't matter what rights exist on paper for tenants, what laws that protect them in their homes, because in reality, they are broken every single day by landlords who must be held accountable,” he added.
Rivas said that her mother, who has since moved to the Dominican Republic, would be unable to afford the rent in the Jackson Heights building should the apartment she’s lived in for over four decades lose its rent-stabilized status.
Her mother, who has a mobility disability, has been routinely flying from the Dominican Republic to Queens and back again for doctors appointments.
“It's very difficult here, I mean financially, to find an apartment in Queens, in Jackson Heights, where she was and where she wants to be,” Rivas said. “It's very difficult because of the rent right now.”
“She lost everything,” she added.
