NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Public Advocate Jumaane Williams released his annual 100 worst New York City landlords list on Tuesday.
The ignominious winner of this year’s list set the record as the worst landlord since Williams started the tradition four years ago.
Jonathan Santana averaged 2,980 open violations across 15 buildings in Manhattan and Queens, the most of any landlord on the list ever.
That’s more than double the average number from last year’s worst landlord. He beat out the second worst landlord, Brian Ritter, by over 1,100 complaints.
David Tennenbaum, Sima Abdavies and Jacob Bistricer filled out the third, fourth and fifth place slots.
The advocate’s office judges the landlords with the most “widespread, unchecked, repeated violations that have led to horrific conditions at their properties" in order to determine the ranking.
Williams made special note of the New York City Housing Authority as a particularly terrible landlord. NYCHA buildings had 673,990 open work orders, an increase of 73,510 over last year.
“The city itself remains the overall worst landlord in New York City,” said Williams in a Tweet.
“Once again, the Public Advocate has chosen to single out NYCHA without acknowledging the $40 billion needed to address the conditions outlined in his list,” said a spokesperson for the housing authority. “NYCHA has been working collaboratively with residents, elected officials and other stakeholders to stand up the Public Housing Preservation Trust — understanding its potential to unlock critically important funding and address long-overdue repairs.”
“We call on the Public Advocate to support NYCHA in its efforts to make conditions better for the New Yorkers who live there and look forward to working with all partners interested in improving the quality of life for public housing residents,” the spokesperson continued.
Total violations per month were up this year. Last year's monthly violations hovered between 534 and 563. In 2022, that range rose to between 670 to 715 open violations per month.
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development documented 69,018 violations total in 2022, up from 53,199 in 2021.
The buildings owned by the worst offenders were clustered in majority non-white neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn.
No Staten Island landlords made the top 100 this year.
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