Boris Johnson backs New Era tenants’ battle with US landlord over rent rises

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/17/boris-johnson-backs-new-era-tenants

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The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has asked his deputy to intervene in the increasingly bitter row involving tenants fighting a battle to stay in their homes after a US investment company bought the estate with plans to refurbish it and charge market rents.

Johnson has no formal powers over the New Era estate in Hoxton, a rapidly-gentrifying part of east London, his spokesman said, as it was private housing on private land.

But he has asked his deputy mayor for housing, Richard Blakeway, to talk to Westbrook Partners, the property investment firm that bought the estate earlier this year, “in an effort to try to find a favourable solution that would allow the tenants to stay in their own homes”, the spokesman said. Blakeway is writing to Westbrook immediately.

The statement added: “The mayor supports the tenants’ desire to stay if at all possible and he would urge the Labour council and the local Labour MP, Meg Hillier, to do all they can to broker an agreement between the tenants of the New Era housing estate and Westbrook Partners that will allow that to happen.”

Johnson’s intervention is a boost to the residents’ campaign, which has already attracted support from the likes of Russell Brand. The tenants had been actively seeking the support of the mayor.

Up till now Westbrook has declined to say what it plans to do with the estate. At the weekend New Era tenants were handed a letter from local councillors saying Westbrook had told them it was reneging on a verbal agreement to not raise rents further before 2016, and the plan was to renovate the estate and re-let the homes at market levels.

The majority of the 96 flats have leases with a break clause of just two weeks, and some residents said they feared they could be evicted by Christmas.

The New York-based company, which has faced official action in its home city for failing to undertake repairs and overcharging tenants, later said it had appointed new managers for the estate in place of a firm co-owned by the Conservative MP Richard Benyon. His company dropped out following negative coverage about its role.

However, Westbrook’s brief statement did not say what would happen to the tenants, only that it would “continue to assess its plans for the future of the estate”.

The Guardian has been told no one at Westbrook’s London office could speak to the media, while similar efforts in New York were frustrated.

Danille Molinari, co-leader of the New Era residents’ campaign, said she remained worried. “I’m petrified that I could be out on the streets with my children at any moment. But I’m not going without a fight, and they need to know this. Whoever comes in with them – we’ll keep on going after you as well because morally what you are doing is wrong. We’ve got an amazing campaign and amazing support and we’ll keep on going. We’re not going anywhere.”