City Returns Home It Snatched From Crown Heights Senior

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN -- The city snatched and sold a Crown Heights senior's $2 million home because of a record-keeping error and through a policy the mayor just announced he hopes to expand, according to the homeowner and her city councilman.

Marlene Saunders, 74, almost lost her renovated brownstone at 1217 Dean St. because the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which used the Third Party Transfer program to seize her home, did not record her payment of a $4,000 outstanding water bill, she said.

"It was crazy," Saunders said at a press conference outside her home on Friday. "They must be out of their minds."

Saunders' home has since been returned to her after local block associations and City Councilman Robert Cornegy convinced HPD to take a closer look at her case, the Brooklyn representative said.

Marlene Saunder almost lost her Dean Street home, which is worth an estimated $2 million and in which she's invested $500,000 for renovations, because an HPD bookkeeping error did not reflect that she'd paid an outstanding water bill for less than $4,000, according to City Council member Robert Cornegy.

An internal investigation found Saunders had paid the $3,792.20 she owed the Department of Environmental Protection and therefore did not qualify for TPT, meant to prevent irreparable disrepair by empowering HPD to seize homes with outstanding debts and transfer ownership to nonprofits, Cornegy said.

Saunders had no outstanding debts and estimated she'd invested $500,000 in renovating her four-unit building, she said.

HPD did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Saunders' deed has been returned to her and Cornegy has vowed to limit the Housing Department's power to seize smaller buildings, despite the Mayor's announcing he would pursue legislation to allow the city to seize more than 40 distressed homes each year and transfer them to new owners.

Cornegy said he told the Mayor's Office, "how displeased we are that while working to build back confidence in our community you would announce another program that sounds eerily similar."

"My bottom line was, no matter what you call it, no more transfers of properties in any program that exists until we can get to the bottom line and insure that this is not disproportionately affecting black and brown communities."

Cornegy, who chairs the City Council Housing and Buildings Committee, said he wants to temporarily halt the program and will oversee an HPD task force that will begin reviewing next week the 60 TPT foreclosures which occurred in New York City in 2018, he said.

"I just want to say on behalf of the city, because you may not get this anywhere else, I apologize," Cornegy told Saunders. "This is bordering a civil rights violation."

Photos by Kathleen Culliton