Stabilizing DCA Brooklyn

In 2012, the Housing Partnership was approached by HPD, HDC, and the New York State Attorney General's Office to play a unique role in addressing the problematic ownership of the DCA Brooklyn portfolio, a 27-building, 216-unit scattered-site Mitchell-Lama property located in Brownsville, Crown Heights, and Bedford-Stuyvesant. The project was constructed in 1971 and was owned by a nonprofit housing company that became defunct over the ensuing four decades. With the cooperation of HPD, HDC, and the Housing Partnership, the AG judicially dissolved the defunct owner and obtained a court order authorizing conveyance of the project to a Housing Partnership affiliate. The Housing Partnership's interim ownership allowed the project to be stabilized and subsequently sold to responsible owners. Omni New York, a real estate development company founded by former baseball player Maurice "Mo" Vaughn and Eugene Schneur, was selected as the ultimate owner. The project received nearly $12 million in rehabilitation, including renovated hallways, new roofs and building entrance doors, upgraded building mechanics with modular condensing steam boilers, and in-unit improvements such as new floors, windows, kitchen cabinets, energy star appliances, bathroom vanities, and a completely overhauled security system with new surveillance cameras.