The rent relief marks a significant victory for residents who organized for years around conditions in the buildings.
“If residents stay current on their rent, we won’t pursue arrears,” Summit spokesperson Jordan Barowitz told Gothamist. He said the company is still determining how many tenants owe back rent, but estimated the total debt amounts to millions of dollars.
Tenant advocates said many residents fell behind on rent after enduring years of unsafe living conditions, while others struggled to make monthly payments because of financial hardship.
The rent relief marks a significant victory for residents who organized for years around conditions in the buildings.
“It is a big victory,” said Vivian Kuo, a representative with the Union of Pinnacle Tenants who lives in a Summit-owned building in Harlem’s Hamilton Heights neighborhood. “This is real direct monetary redress of people’s issues.”
Kuo said tenants experienced persistent problems, including collapsed ceilings, heat outages, and darkened hallways, after utility service to common areas was interrupted because of unpaid bills.
“Your home should be safe, and there are certain basic standards — heat, hot water, ceilings and walls that don’t have massive holes, doors that lock, a fire escape you can actually escape from,” Kuo said. “These are things that we should have.”
The portfolio became a focal point of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing agenda shortly after he took office. City officials sought to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings, citing nearly $13 million in unpaid taxes and fines owed by Pinnacle to the city.
Barowitz said Summit “fixed hundreds of apartments, cured thousands of violations, and exceeded our commitment.”
Tenant organizer Jesse Ryan said residents expect the company to address thousands of additional violations identified during city inspections this spring.
“They’re not new issues, they’re newly recorded,” Ryan said. “We believe those new numbers aren’t a reflection of new issues, but rather the record-keeping catching up to reflect the picture of how many issues there are in these buildings.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
