Local Landlords, Unite! vs. Eviction Bill

“I am a part of a group of landlords in the area who help each other out by discussing issues and providing support and guidance to each other,” wrote Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg. 

Mandy Management’s Adir Chen wrote that too. So did Julian Cardona and Menahem Edelkopf and Alejandro Soriano and Menahem Lebenhartz and more than a dozen fellow New Haven-area landlords and property managers. 

Each ​“wrote” those same words in individually signed form letters seeking to persuade state legislators to protect their right to evict rent-paying tenants whose leases have expired.

The group of New Haven-area landlords sent those letters as public testimony in opposition to Raised Senate Bill No. 143: An Act Concerning Evictions For Cause, currently under consideration by the state legislature.

If approved and signed into law, the bill would prohibit a landlord from evicting a tenant who lives in a building with at least five apartments simply because the term of that tenant’s lease has run out.

Instead, landlords would be limited to evicting tenants ​“for cause” — meaning, for example, because the tenant is behind on rent, or they have violated the terms of a rental agreement, or they present a danger to the health and safety of other tenants or the property itself. 

On Feb. 29, in a party-line vote — with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed — the Connecticut General Assembly’s Housing Committee voted in support of the no-fault eviction bill. Now the bill heads to the full state legislature for debate and a potential final vote.

This bill has been at the center of a heated debate between landlords and tenants in Hartford in what Hearst’s Alex Putterman has described as ​“the tensest rivalry of CT’s legislative session.”

As evidenced in the 400-plus letters of written public testimony from across the state submitted in regard to this bill, New Haven tenants, landlords, and lawyers have plenty to say about this proposed expansion of eviction protections.

According to the Independent’s review of every piece of written public testimony submitted as of Wednesday, a total of 20 New Haven-area landlords and property managers wrote in to the Housing Committee to oppose the bill as part of an apparently organized effort.

They did so through individually signed form letters. That is, each submitted the exact same letter with the exact same text explaining why they think this bill would make housing less affordable and more dangerous. 

The only difference in each letter was the name of the landlord or property manager signing the document.

Form letters are quite common when organized groups seek to weigh in on a proposed piece of legislation at any level of government, making it easier for individuals who agree on a certain political matter to amplify their voices to try to achieve a collective goal. 

And these 20 New Haven-area landlords were by no means the only public testifiers to submit form letters opposing Senate Bill 143. Members of a group called the Connecticut Apartment Association also submitted different written testimony that in part followed a script, in voicing their own collective opposition to the bill.

What distinguishes the identical letters sent by the 20 New Haven-area landlords featured in this article is that it is one of the first public legislative advocacy efforts in recent memory in which a group of New Haven-area landlords identify themselves as belonging to a New Haven-specific group of property owners — and then seek to accomplish a common goal through a concerted effort, even if that is as relatively small as signing and emailing a pre-written letter.

The letter offers a view into what a disparate group of New Haven-area landlords share in terms of their professional understanding of the city’s housing market and their ideological and political commitment to achieving certain common goals. It also represents a collective opposition to a more publicly and frequently reported on organized effort among renters to expand tenant rights across New Haven and Connecticut.

The 20 New Haven-area landlords and property managers who sent in this form letter opposing Senate Bill 143 included, in alphabetical order: Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg, Anchor Point Realty’s Sebastian Barneby, Julian Cardona, Mandy Management’s Adir Chen, 90 – 92 High St LLC’s Erin Cummins, Avi Dagan, Yasef Deitsch, Menahem Edelkopf, Jeff Friedman, Lionheart Holdings Group’s Menahem Lebenhartz, Abraham Meer, Todah LLC’s Arie Melka, F.N.L. Holdings LLC’s Lada Milito, Maple Leaf Management’s Judah Rothschild, Levi Stone, MBS Management’s Alejandro Soriano, Billierose Tacher, Made Management LLC’s Simon Thurm, Kate Usovich, and Law Properties LLC’s Yisroel Weinreb. 

Another two public testifiers, Nicole McKenzie of Fairbridge Commons and Tara O’Keefe of BCT‑1 LLC, each submitted this same pre-written form letter in opposition to the bill, but identified themselves at the top as property managers in Bridgeport rather than landlord / property managers from the New Haven area.

The Independent was unable to confirm who exactly wrote this form letter, or whether or not it was composed collectively. In a brief phone call on Tuesday, Menahem Edelkopf claimed he had written it.

Click here to read all written public testimony submitted in support of and opposition to this bill. Click here, here, here, and here to read some of the form letters signed and submitted as public testimony by New Haven landlords.

Landlord Letter: Property Owners' "Basic Rights" At Risk

So. What does the form letter itself say? Click here to read one such copy, as signed by Ocean Management’s Aizenberg.

It makes a number of arguments grounded in tenant safety, housing quality and affordability, and private property rights in its collective local-landlord urging of state legislators to block the bill.

In regards to tenant safety, the letter states that each signatory routinely receives complaints about ​“a particular tenant.” The complainants are often reluctant to call the police or social services or to testify in court against their neighbor. This can make it ​“extremely difficult” to evict a tenant for some of the at-fault reasons a landlord can cite when trying to force a renter out, including ​“nuisance” and lease violations. 

“I rent to many families with children, and they deserve to live in a safe, peaceful and clean environment,” the form letter reads. ​“I am simply unable to ensure my tenants are provided with such an environment if my ability to terminate the lease of a bad tenant is severely limited.”

Next up, each landlord identifies the ​“lack of decent affordable housing in Connecticut. Many apartments in the area are dilapidated and people are forced to move into subpar apartments because of a lack of choice.” 

If the signatory landlord wants to buy and renovate an apartment, the form letter reads, that housing unit needs to be empty. ​“There are many people who would choose to remain living in the premises instead of agreeing to look for other housing. Without the ability to terminate a tenancy at the end of a lease I would not be able to take on a new opportunity to make necessary renovations to an existing building that I might otherwise consider purchasing.”

The form letter continues by stating that, in order to renovate dilapidated rental housing, the signatory landlord needs to be able to borrow money. ​“Banks require a current one-year lease in place for each unit before they can provide financing. Many tenants simply refuse to sign new leases. Such tenants prefer to live in a unit on a month-to-month basis, so they can stay or lease as and when they choose to. Without the ability to terminate these tenancies there is no incentive to sign a new lease and banks will be unable to provide financing.”

The letter then states that each signing landlord sometimes receives rental applications from tenants who, due to their ​“credit or housing history,” would not pass the landlord’s typical ​“application standards.”

“They may have a social program trying to place them. As of now I am often willing to give prospective tenants a chance because I know that if things do not work out, I can terminate the tenancy at its end. I think such tenant applications will be rejected by many landlords due to the inability to terminate the tenancy at the end of the term.”

The letter concludes by referencing existing laws that protect tenants and prevent homelessness, including that a judgment entered for ​“lapse of time” — that is, an expired lease — will still allow a tenant to stay in their apartment for up to six months.

“Tenants are currently afforded protections concerning a fair rent,” the letter reads. ​“There are laws governing the establishment of fair rents and fair rent commissions. A property owner should be able to fairly negotiate, charge and receive a rent based on market conditions. If a tenant is able to stay in an apartment for an indefinite period of time of their choosing, a property owner will be deprived of that basic right.”

In a follow up comment provided to the Independent on Thursday, Mandy Management CEO Yudi Gurevitch — who did not himself submit one of the form letters, but whose organization did via property manager Adir Chen — described the letter as coming from ​“an informal group of area landlords.”

He stressed that the bill under consideration ​“leans too heavily in favor of tenant protections at the expense of the landlord’s ability to manage their properties effectively, responsible, and profitably.”

In defense of lapse-of-time, or no-fault, evictions, Gurevitch continued: ​“Lapse-of-time evictions are a fundamental right of a landlord and is a critical aspect of effective property management. As landlords, it’s our prerogative and right to reclaim possession of our units once the contractual agreement reaches its conclusion. Lapse-of-time helps us effectively run our business because it ensures we can manage tenancy cycles, maintain the property, and safeguard resident’s well-being. In many cases, the ability to end a tenancy at the expiration of its contract term allows us to address situations that might compromise the safety and security of the entire tenant community.”

This group of landlords seeks ​“a dialogue that bridges the gap between ensuring landlords can manage their properties and protecting tenant rights,” he wrote. ​“Our goal is to find a path forward that sustains the health and vibrancy of the rental market in Connecticut while upholding fairness and safety for all parties involved.”

These 20 form-letter-signing New Haven landlords weren’t the only advocates active in the New Haven housing market to submit testimony in regards to the no-fault-eviction bill.

New Haven landlord attorneys Jeffrey Weisman and Eliana Schachter also wrote in opposition to the bill. In separately written testimonies, they argued that lapse of time evictions allow landlords an ability ​“to provide clean, safe and peaceful housing to their tenants,” as Schachter put it.

“The cost time and expense of a nuisance eviction is far greater than that of a Lapse of Time eviction,” cautioned Weisman. ​“Those expenses will be passed on to the other tenants. We are seeing a surge in the cost to rent an apartment in Connecticut. Much of the need to increase rents is related to the administrative costs and burdens resulting from new laws and regulations.”

Bill Boosters: Masked "Retaliation"

Legal aid attorneys and New Haven tenants and tenants rights organizers also wrote in to the Housing Committee — in vocal support of the bill.

They criticized lapse-of-time evictions as a tool that landlords use to maximize profits at the expense of renters who have sometimes been living in an apartment for years, or even decades. They said tenants have an exceedingly difficult time finding a new place to live just because their lease has run out and their landlord doesn’t want to renew.

Lapse-of-time evictions all too often cover up ​“discrimination, retaliation, and intimidation,” wrote New Haven Legal Assistance Association Deputy Director Elizabeth Rosenthal. ​“Landlords use lapse to evict people with subsidies, Black and Brown mothers and their children, people with disabilities, and undocumented immigrants. Tenants are scared to report serious conditions in their apartments because they cannot afford to move.”

Fellow New Haven legal aid attorney Sinclair Williams wrote to the state legislative committee about nine tenants in three different buildings he met last year who received lapse-of-time eviction notices from their new shared landlord as soon as he had bought their homes. 

This landlord ​“did not treat these tenants like human beings,” Williams wrote. ​“He treated them like objects to be thrown out.”

Luke Melonakos-Harrison, a New Havener and vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, pointed to landlord ​“retaliation” against tenants as all too common in lapse-of-time eviction cases. 

“Yet without requiring a stated cause for eviction, landlords will continue to hold unilateral power to define what types of behavior count as ​‘harmful,’ whether that means actual harm to others or simply requesting repairs or questioning lease terms,” Melonakos-Harrison wrote. ​“By requiring landlords to state the reason for the eviction, both sides have an opportunity to make their case in court — rather than giving one side an easy cover for abuses of power, which is the current status quo.”

Sarah Giovanniello, the vice president of New Haven’s Blake Street Tenants Union, similarly wrote in support of the bill. ​“Landlords are used to using lapse of time evictions to bully and terrify tenants into compliance,” she wrote. ​“Pay 30% more, or you’ll be on the street. Form a tenant union and you’ll be on the street. The lack of stability that an expired lease holds is terrifying for people. … Tenant protections need to be seriously strengthened if we want to keep communities like mine together and avoid people falling into homelessness and poverty.”

See below for a copy of one of the local landlord-submitted form letters in opposition to the proposed no-fault eviction bill.