Jersey City- On Thursday November 21, tenants who live at 336 New York Avenue and allies from Jersey City Together called on the Jersey City Rent Leveling Board to deny the hardship rent increase requested by their landlords, Holland Management. Residents have endured terrible conditions and brutal harassment by Holland, in a calculated campaign to force them out of their rent-controlled homes. The board didn’t grant the increase and voted to adjourn in order to collect more information.
“We are asking for the Rent Leveling Board to deny the increase. They’ve literally been lying to multiple people, including us.” said Anna Bassett, a tenant leader with Jersey City Together.
Holland “is a bad faith landlord who has treated the tenants awfully and continues to and is looking to get all of these tenants out of the building as quickly as possible,” said Marc Rosenthal, another tenant in the building stated.
Terrible behavior by Holland Management includes:
-residents being left without functioning bathrooms for months,
-piles of rotting garbage accumulating in the basement,
-staff engaging in unsanitary behavior, such as urinating in common spaces.
-instructing staff to avoid necessary repairs and refuse to remove trash.
-rent checks being withheld and falsely claimed as never received,
-ignoring requests to fix deliberately glued locks and provide video footage of break-ins—where their hidden cameras had clear vantage points.
Despite this ongoing abuse, Holland submitted falsified records, claiming to have paid staff regularly among other things, in an attempt to justify a rent increase with the city.
“This has been going on and on and on and now they’re taking this hardship application and using it as a smoke screen to cover up all the things they’ve done prior. We’ve been filing complaints and they’ve been ignoring us,” said Bassett.
The landlord's responses have ranged from deceptive rent hikes to planting dead fish and feces in tenants' apartments. “The complexity of the situation warrants a judicial scrutiny, except they don’t show up for court,” Bassett argued.
Holland has even ignored active arrest warrants for failing to appear at municipal Court for hearings on the harassment and criminal acts they committed.
The Board voted 6-0 to adjourn until next month pending resolution of open violations and in order to gather more information on Holland’s behavior. Jersey City Together tenant leaders and allies will keep working until tenants can live in decent conditions free from harassment.
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