Blake Gardens Tenants Union Vice President Sarah Giovanniello (at the mic): “We want to buy the place ourselves.”
Tenants at a 70-unit Blake Street apartment complex rallied outside Ocean Management’s office Wednesday afternoon, demanding a new collectively bargained lease with their landlord — and renewing their push to buy the building themselves.
Members of the Blake Street Tenants Union, which is renaming itself the Blake Gardens Tenant Union, gathered with allies from the Connecticut Tenants Union, UNITE HERE, and New Haven Rising in front of Ocean Management’s new office at 192 Fitch St.
Ocean has listed the complex at 311 Blake St., now branded “Blake Gardens,” for $13.5 million. The city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $5,956,700.
“We don’t even want to rent anymore,” said Sarah Giovanniello, a vice president of the tenants union. “We want to buy the place ourselves.”
Ocean Management, led by Shmuel Aizenberg, bought the complex for $9.2 million about five years ago. In 2023, its tenants — who had formed New Haven’s first legally recognized tenants union — won what organizers call the state’s first collectively bargained lease between a tenants union and a landlord. That agreement is now expiring, and Giovanniello said many tenants are on month-to-month leases.
The union is asking for a new collectively bargained lease of three years or longer, an extension of its 2023 memorandum of agreement, and a “pathway” for tenants to buy the building.
Aizenberg told the Independent he has not agreed to extend the existing agreement.
He called the sale “a routine business decision,” and said the asking price “is very reasonable and reflects the millions of dollars the company has invested in interior and exterior improvements to the property over the past several years.”
Aizenberg said he met with union representatives last week and told them that “if they were interested in purchasing the property, I would be open to reviewing a serious offer. They have not submitted an offer or a concrete proposal.”
Luke Melonakos, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, said the union first reached out to Aizenberg about the expired leases on July 6. Tenants found the sale listing on their own earlier this month, he said, and even the complex’s property manager, who lives at Blake Gardens, was surprised to learn of it.
Tenants union leaders said that, at last week’s meeting, Aizenberg promised to follow up with a written proposal on rents and apartment improvements, but did not. When Giovanniello then texted asking him at least to confirm he would offer multi-year leases and extend the agreement, Melonakos said, Aizenberg didn’t respond.
“The union’s sense of urgency is well-founded,” Melonakos said.
He said the property’s marketing materials promise prospective buyers a 25 percent increase in rental income, which he said would mean 25 percent rent hikes for tenants.
Aizenberg said he offered to continue talks next week, and was “disappointed to receive a demand for a response within 24 hours.”
The union also tried to buy the building in 2024, when Ocean listed it for $13.95 million before taking it off the market. Hannah Srajer of the Connecticut Tenants Union said the union is now working with community partners and having conversations about buying the property and turning it into permanently affordable cooperative housing.
Srajer said the union is scheduled to meet with Ocean Management next Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 5 p.m.
Former CT Tenants Union Secretary-Treasurer Peter Fousek said its relationship with the nonprofit developer Home Inc. “remains intact,” and that it is also in conversations with Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven.
He also said financing could come from Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Federal Home Loan Bank mortgages, and state programs — but that all of those depend on the union first getting an offer accepted.
Giovanniello said that when Ocean bought the complex, tenants lost a local family landlord who “had maintained the complex extremely well.” In 2023, Ocean issued no-fault notices to quit to 16 tenants, who became known as the “Blake Street 16.”
The union fought the evictions and won its agreement.
Garrett Kimball, 39, was one of the 16. He works at Tweed New Haven Airport through New Haven Works, a jobs program that requires participants to live in New Haven. He said that losing his apartment could also cost him his job.
Since receiving that pre-eviction notice several years ago, he said, he hasn’t felt secure at home.
“I haven’t decorated my apartment the way I want to. I haven’t bought the furniture I would choose for myself,” he said. “Why would I invest in making a home when I don’t know how much longer I’ll be allowed to stay in it?”
Kimball said tenants recently went about a week without power and that the building’s laundry room remains out of order. He and other tenants also described overflowing garbage, mice, roaches, and broken security cameras. Melonakos added that tenants have experienced loss of heat and power outages.
Aizenberg disputed the tenants’ descriptions.
“The property is well maintained and professionally managed, with an on-site superintendent and an online system for tenants to submit maintenance requests,” he said. “To my knowledge, there are no ongoing property-wide issues of the kind described.”
He did not specifically address the power outage, loss of heat, or the laundry room.
“Given the timing,” Aizenberg said, “I’m concerned they are being used to pressure me in connection with these discussions.”
Aizenberg did not respond to follow-up questions about whether he notified the union before listing the property, the union’s account of last week’s meeting, and the 25 percent rent-hike figure.
Union leaders said that if Ocean sells to another buyer, tenants’ existing agreements keep their tenancies intact, and the union will push the new owner to the bargaining table — and for a right of first refusal if the building is ever sold again.
“I don’t think wanting a stable home is asking for too much,” Kimball said.
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