NEW YORK CITY— The City of New York may take control of privately owned apartments if the landlord does not correct housing code violations, announced New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Jan.16.

“We want to make it clear to everyone in this city that no one is above the law. If you are a landlord violating the law, then this administration will hold you to account,” said Mamdani.

The mayor was speaking from Jackson Heights to announce a $2.1 million settlement with property owner A&E Real Estate, which owns 14 buildings in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, housing 750 tenants.

Asked by a reporter why the city did not simply take over these buildings, Mamdani clarified that taking over the property is not the goal.

“The intended outcome is safety and wellbeing for tenants. That is what we are driven toward,” explained Mamdani. The settlement announced today requires A&E Real Estate to pay $2.1 million in fines, fix 4,000 violations across its buildings, and includes an injunction to prohibit A&E from harassing tenants.

Dina Levy, Mamdani’s housing commissioner, explained that when tenants’ health and safety are at risk, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development will “use 7A administrative proceedings to remove the buildings from the owner’s control and install responsive management.”

Diana de la Pava, who lives in one of A&E’s buildings in Jackson Heights, described some of the conditions tenants faced. She said since July 2024 until now, the elevators have been out of service for 12 out of the 18 months. She said that often elevators would be broken for weeks or even months at a time.

“These failures effectively imprisoned elderly and disabled tenants in their own homes,” said de la Pava at the press conference. It was the death of a fellow tenant that motivated her to take action. She described an 84-year-old resident living on the fourth floor of her building, Alberto Quintero, who died during a heat wave.

Just days before he died, “Alberto had told me the broken elevator was going to kill him. I just didn’t pay attention,” said de la Pava.

After his death, she was motivated to contact City Council Member Shekar Krishnan. Tenants teamed up with the city to sue the landlord, A&E Real Estate. The parties reached a settlement in December 2025.

A spokesperson for A&E Real Estate responded to the mayor’s press conference via an emailed statement.

“We’ve made it our mission to collaborate with the city to improve this building and others that were in deep disrepair when we took ownership. In every building we’ve purchased, we’ve invested in replacing boilers, rehabbing elevators, and fixing tens of thousands of longstanding violations.”

Specifically, for the building where Mayor Mamdani announced the settlement, 35-64 84th Street in Jackson Heights, A&E said the building was in disrepair when they purchased it in 2021. Since then A&E has “completely replaced and upgraded the boiler system, made major repairs to the facade and roof to prevent leaks, rehabbed aging elevators, fixed nearly 90 percent of the building’s violations.”