Forced Out

Raul Ortiz, a 71-year-old Cuban immigrant, looks out at Biscayne Bay from his waterfront apartment in Brickell and says he’s living the “American dream.”

His neighbor, 82-year-old Magali Wilson, is happy just to watch through her window as young people run by or play sports. Amalia Nariznis, a 93-year-old Argentinian, often knits or reads the newspaper in her unit on the 13th floor, of which she is a lone resident, leaving the door unlocked in case she falls and has to call for help from a neighbor.

Located at 1809 Brickell Ave., George Humphrey Towers is a 17-story, 272-unit apartment building designated as affordable senior housing, and it’s home to a group of people that don’t see themselves as neighbors or even friends, but as family.

Yet, chances are, they won’t be living there much longer.

The building, formerly called the Stanley Axelrod Tower, was bought out by Integra Investments just five years before its affordable housing restrictions would expire in September 2019. Now, Integra – along with big-league real estate company Related Group and hotel chain Marriott – is looking to make way on the five-acre property for two luxury condominium towers, together known as St. Regis Residencies.

For tenants, the worst part is having to leave the home that they once believed would be their last.

“I thought I was going to die here,” said Jose Arguelles, an 80-year-old Cuban immigrant and 11-year resident who goes by Pepe. “I always said, ‘God, I’m so lucky. I’m going to be here for the rest of my life.’”

“No one told me that what’s happening now was going to happen, so here we are,” said Ortiz, himself a seven-year resident.

With pending litigation and an uncertain future ahead, many residents are currently living out of cardboard boxes. But even if all goes according to the developers’ plan and St. Regis does come to fruition, these tenants won’t be left just standing on the curb. Instead, they have a brand new affordable housing option waiting for them in Allapattah.

An Unsatisfying Solution

Completed less than two months ago at 1396 NW 36th St., Mosaico is a 13-story property with 279 units reserved for people ages 62 and older. It was built by Integra Investments and partnering nonprofit Elderly Housing Development & Operations Corporation with the intent of relocating the residents of George Humphrey Towers, who are getting first priority to choose their units at the new location.

“Designed by CC Hodgson Architectural Group, which specializes in premium elderly housing, Mosaico is an ADA-compliant, green building, and all units feature a contemporary ambience with high-end cabinets, quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances, energy-saving LED lighting and low-flow fixtures,” said Paulo Tavares de Melo, an Integra principal, in an email to the Biscayne Times.

The building also includes a community space, fitness center, computer lab, library and rooftop community garden. It is located next to a Metrobus stop and two blocks away from the Allapattah Metrorail station.

Monthly rent is 30% of a Mosaico tenant’s income, which is what residents currently pay for their units at George Humphrey Towers.

City Commissioner Ken Russell, who oversees the district that encompasses the coastal lines of Brickell, refers to the displacement as an unprecedented solution – one that he says is largely a culmination of the pressure he himself placed upon the developer to ensure the seniors’ safety and proper relocation from the beginning.

“After having worked on it for five years, I can easily say this is the best example of what should be done when trying to help people relocate as a property gets purchased and redeveloped,” he said.

But residents, many of whom are disabled, are unsatisfied with the deal. They don’t want to move anywhere new. In fact, they’d like nothing more than to stick to what they’re used to.

“I never thought I’d have to move again once I moved here,” said Wilson, who has lived in her apartment for 11 years with her husband, Juan Piniella.

Piniella, 91, shouldn’t be lifting things after having undergone a hernia operation, and although Integra has offered to provide and assume the costs of relocation, Wilson doesn’t want anyone going through her things. She nearly tripped over one of her packing boxes last month because she couldn’t distinguish it from the floor, which is the same shade of brown.

Nariznis, too, cannot imagine starting over. She moved in 15 years ago from Kendall to be in a smaller home closer to her children, who live in Key Biscayne and Miami Beach.

“The worst thing for me is not that I move … The worst thing is, once they move you, to start unpacking and organizing a new house,” said Nariznis in Spanish. “Organizing – that makes me panic.”

Some of the tenants are particularly against living in Allapattah, which they view as crime ridden. Those residents have the option of acquiring a Section 8 voucher to move elsewhere if they choose to.

In any case, it appears that there’s a fight left to be had, and one man is determined to see it through.

A Silver Ponytail vs. an Iron Fist

In May 2017, George Humphrey Towers gained a new resident: Sherman Rattner, a 74-year-old Vietnam veteran with a long ponytail and an even longer résumé. After a chat with the former manager and an email to the developer, he uncovered the truth of the possibility that he’d have to move out just two years later.  

Within nine months, the 1809 Brickell Tenants Association was formed – with Rattner named as president.

The association began to organize with Ortiz as vice president and translator and Piniella as treasurer. Together they pitched their own proposal for the property: Julia Tuttle Towers, a mixed-use, tenant-owned development to be permanently designated as affordable housing.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez listened to their pitch. They made it in the local newspaper. They had hope. And although Russell credits the city as the catalyst for the Mosaico development, Rattner says he’s certain it would have never happened if the tenants didn’t cause such a stir.

For four years now, Rattner has been protesting what he views as a development that was flawed from its inception, dating back to the sale of the property to Integra Investments. He has spoken at city and county commission meetings and sent countless letters to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which granted the initial Section 202 loan for Stanley Axelrod Tower to be built in 1966 and has since overseen the progression of the property.

Now, even as deals between HUD and the developers are all but final, Rattner believes his case is substantial enough for him, acting as a lone fighter representing himself, to go against HUD, Miami-Dade County, the city of Miami, Integra Investments and Florida’s biggest real estate firm, Related Group, in a court of law.

Rattner’s claims begin with the 2014 sale between Integra Investments and United Teachers of Dade, which originally built Stanley Axelrod Tower to house aging school teachers. The property was sold to Integra for $14 million just a year before the property was appraised at more than $36 million.

That offer, well below market rate, was accepted in spite of a higher, all-cash bid of $20 million placed by a firm that would have kept the tower for affordable housing, WLRN reported at the time. That, says Rattner, reeks of suspicion.

Pending Lawsuit

Just before the HUD-imposed affordable housing restrictions were to expire in September 2019, Integra entered into a user agreement with HUD that renewed the covenant until 2039. Shortly after, HUD granted Integra preliminary approval to transfer the terms of that agreement to a new property – namely, Mosaico – that would assume the requirements for rental assistance, leaving 1809 Brickell Ave. free of any obligation to its original tenants.

The transfer, dictated by HUD’s Section 210 guidelines, requires for the original property to be physically obsolete. Herein lies another one of Rattner’s claims: that George Humphrey Towers, which was analyzed by EBI Consulting as needing only approximately $30,000 worth of immediate repairs for ADA compliance, doesn’t meet the criteria for obsolescence at all.

Although the 2018 report by EBI Consulting, a firm that was hired by Integra Investments to perform a comprehensive analysis of all needed building repairs, says the building is short nearly $10.8 million worth of total maintenance after being adjusted for inflation, Rattner claims many of these repairs are a result of the owner’s own neglect to care for the building since acquiring it years ago.

When asked for the justification behind the 2014 HUD-approved sale and the subsequent transfer of obligations outlined in the 2019 user agreement, HUD refused to comment on any specifics due to the pending litigation.

“The preservation of affordable housing units in a community is vital,” reads an email fr

om a HUD spokesperson who spoke generally on the matter. “HUD works with property owners and local stakeholders to maintain, and increase in some cases, the number of affordable units. However, upon the ending of an affordability period, private property owners have met their commitment and are free to decide what to do next with their property.”

The defendants are collectively going back and forth in litigation with Rattner, whose claim was filed May 31, 2022, in federal court. The trial is set for May 2023.

In the meantime, Tavares de Melo has said that relocation to Mosaico can begin as early as this month. But Rattner, who has been hearing that since December 2021, isn’t convinced.

Rattner acknowledges that his venture is a difficult one. He gives himself a 50/50 chance, already having decided to move into Mosaico alongside his neighbors if all else fails. But his concerns for affordable housing in the city don’t end there.

A Broader Issue

Rattner recently attended a June 23 city commission meeting to challenge a planning and zoning item that would allow developers with affordable housing restrictions to sell off their unused density. The item, although passed upon first reading in a 4-1 vote, was met with debate – some arguing it would subsidize affordable housing while others worried it would only provide developers at the receiving end of those deals with more room to build at market rate and above.

Rattner, for one, is unsupportive of governments providing developers with height bonuses, allowing them to build

with a much higher sellout than what they once paid for the land. He’s fearful that this is what will happen at 1809 Brickell Ave., where the proposed 48-story condo towers comprising St. Regis Residencies – already being heavily advertised – will be built in a zone that currently allows a maximum height of 24 stories.

Instead, Rattner believes commissioners should leverage extra density or zoning changes by requiring affordable and workforce housing covenants on properties that would otherwise be used solely for market-rate condominiums – a strategy that’s used throughout the city and county, but with not enough frequency or rigor, according to him.

One concern is that areas like Brickell are being increasingly maintained for luxury housing, while areas like Allapattah, Liberty City and Overtown are reserved for low-income residents, essentially creating a class boundary in the Magic City.

As it is, George Humphrey Towers is the last bastion of affordable housing in Brickell. The Gallery at West Brickell is a 22-story, mixed-income tower planned by Related Group in the heart of the neighborhood, but it has yet to break ground.

Still, Russell says the compartmentalization of poverty is an inverse to what he sees to be the real problem.

“The greater concern is actually the opposite,” he said. “That high-end luxury housing is moving into traditionally affordable neighborhoods and gentrifying and displacing in a way that will leave room for nobody that lives and works in the city.”

No matter how you slice it, the truth is bleak: Housing affordability is crisis mode in Miami.

With expiring affordability restrictions like the ones that have afflicted the residents of George Humphrey, federally

assisted homes are being lost quicker than they’re being created – an occurrence that Rattner refers to as a “time bomb waiting to go off” and a way of “turning today’s crisis into tomorrow’s disaster.”

In the end, Rattner isn’t asking the court for money; he’s only asking that he and his neighbors be able to keep their homes. For him, the best outcome will be the one in which Mosaico and George Humphrey Towers both remain standing. That way, he says, affordable housing will have been created, not just replaced.

“All we want is to save our home,” Ortiz said.

“And help other people save theirs,” Rattner added.