A former Air Force honcho has filed a $100 million class-action lawsuit against a major Manhattan developer, alleging that the mogul’s Battery Park City complex is “the poster child of uninhabitability.”
Retired Air Force Assistant Secretary Maureen Koetz says her apartment at 355 South End Ave. is so cold during the winter that she is forced to “regularly scrape ice from the interior . . . to avoid the melting frost from causing further water damage,” according to the Manhattan civil suit.
Koetz, who lives in the six-building Gateway Plaza complex with 5,000 other residents suffering similar conditions, is suing the LeFrak Organization run by billionaire Richard LeFrak.
“The units are poorly constructed, inadequately insulated and riddled with defects in the heating and ventilating systems,” according to court papers.
The suit says the units, which start at $2,350 for a studio, are not “fit for human habitation.”
The suit claims LeFrak is also profiting off the tenants’ misery as the landlord purchases electricity from Con Ed and then resells it to residents who have to use space heaters to stay warm.
A LeFrak spokesman said, “We will defend this lawsuit vigorously as it is baseless and without merit.”