Settlement Reached on Stuy-Town Rent Overcharges

NEW YORK CITY-Tenants who filed a class-action suit in 2007 against the then-current and former owners of Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town have reached an agreement with the defendants to settle past and future rent overcharge claims, court documents show. The settlement received preliminary approval Thursday by Justice Richard B. Lowe III, chief justice of the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Term, First Department, with a hearing on final approval scheduled for April 9, 2013.

The $68.75-million settlement covers rent overcharges on 4,311 apartment units at Stuy-Town between Jan. 22, 2003 and Dec. 31, 2011.  The two trusts that hold the $3-billion senior loan on the 11,229-unit apartment complex in Midtown South, PCV ST Owner LP and ST Owner LP, will contribute $58.25 million toward the settlement, while former owner Metropolitan Tower Life Insurance Co. is putting in $10.5 million. MetLife developed the complex in the late 1940s.