P l a n N Y C | Planning Information Portal

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village

On October 17, 2006, Tishman Speyer Properties and partner BlackRock investment bank, signed the largest American real estate deal ever, agreeing to pay $5.4 billion for Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a vast corridor of 110 apartment buildings with a total of 11,232 units, along the East River. Built by Metropolitan Life for returning veterans in 1947, with the help of tax breaks and the government’s powers of eminent domain, nearly three quarters of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments have regulated rents at roughly half the market rate. An apartment can be decontrolled after it becomes vacant, or if the rent reaches $2,000 a month and the existing tenants’ household income rises above $175,000 for two consecutive years. Twenty-seven percent of the apartments are now at market rates and another 1,800 units will be decontrolled over the next two years.

Present tenants fear that a new owner would transform the complexes into a luxury enclave and organized a failed $4.5 billion offer intended to preserve at least 40 percent of the complexes as middle-class housing, for buyers or renters. City officials refused to provide assistance or tax breaks that the tenant’s group had requested, arguing that the city could create and preserve affordable housing for significantly less money at other sites. While Tishman Speyer has pledged that there will be no sudden shift in the neighborhood’s makeup, they refuse to commit to preserving a large block of apartments as affordable housing. They further insist that there are no plans to develop any of the open space in the complex.