Bronx building touted by Mamdani as peak affordable housing has 194 code violations

An apartment building in the Bronx that Mayor Zohran Mamdani used to highlight the experience of newly appointed Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Dina Levy has nearly 200 unresolved housing code violations.

According to a report by the New York Post, the 102-unit building in the Morris Heights neighborhood has 194 open violations dating back to 2016. 88 of those are classified as “Class C” violations, which the city considers “immediately hazardous.” The violations include reports of rat and roach infestations, mold, broken appliances, and other serious maintenance issues.

On January 4, Mamdani visited the affordable housing building to introduce Levy as his choice to lead the city’s Housing Preservation and Development agency. During the visit, he highlighted Levy’s nonprofit background and experience overseeing affordable housing. Levy previously helped broker a 2011 deal for the nonprofit Workforce Housing Advisors to purchase the Sedgwick Avenue complex from private owners. The transaction was supported by a $5.6 million HPD loan arranged through Levy and her nonprofit, with the goal of maintaining the building’s “affordable” rental status.

“Dina will no longer be petitioning HPD from the outside,” Mamdani said. “She will now be leading it from the inside, delivering the kind of change that can transform lives.”

Despite the mayor’s remarks, the Morris Heights building reportedly has more than double the number of Class C violations than a privately owned 71-unit complex in Prospect Heights that Mamdani cited days earlier as a bad example of housing in the city.

According to the New York Post, tenants at the Bronx building said conditions were better before the nonprofit took control.

“I have been here over 20 years, and I preferred it when it was under private management because they used to screen people in and out of the building,” one tenant, Mordistine Alexander, said. Alexander, who said she has lived in the apartment since 1999, cited recurring issues including a lack of heat and hot water, outdated windows, and being without a working kitchen light for months.

“Since [the nonprofit] took over, the building has deteriorated. They lack porters. No one is maintaining it, and the complaints fall on deaf ears – especially if you complain a lot,” she added.

The Sedgwick Avenue apartment building has more HPD violations than about three-quarters of privately owned, rent-stabilized buildings in the city.

“You have to laugh at the hypocrisy,” said Councilwoman Joann Ariola, per the New York Post. “These nonprofits are proving themselves to be little more than taxpayer-funded slumlords, and this blatant double-standard is all part of the administration’s planned attack on private ownership in New York City.”

HPD Commissioner Levy is yet another member of Mamdani's team who has faced criticism for pushing socialist values while growing up with a life of privilege. Levy is the daughter of a lawyer and a civil rights attorney who owned multiple properties, one of which was a townhouse in Georgetown that sold for $1.4 million in 2023. Cea Weaver, Mamdani's director of the Office to Protect Tenants, had a similar privileged background, yet has promoted anti-home ownership ideals, even going as far as saying that home ownership is a "weapon of white supremacy."