Laura Glesby Photo
Jake Sr. and Jr.: Moving soon out of Sunset Ridge after a canceled Notice to Quit.
Laura Glesby photo
A real estate investment firm filed 26 eviction lawsuits in just one month against tenants in a single low-income Quinnipiac Meadows apartment complex — cementing that landlord’s status as one of the most aggressive evictors in the city.
A sprawling, cliffside apartment complex known as Sunset Ridge — 312 low-income apartments spanning several buildings at the end of Smith Avenue — was the site of more eviction lawsuits than any other New Haven property in 2022.
Since 2011, Sunset Ridge has been owned by B\G Connecticut I LLC, an affiliate of the Hamden-based real estate firm Belfonti Companies, which is run by Michael Belfonti.
The apartments at the nearly 26-acre property are reserved for renters making no more than 60 percent of the area median income — or $54,060 for a two-person household in 2022 — per an agreement that Belfonti’s company struck with the semi-public Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) more than a decade ago.
According to the Independent’s review of New Haven housing court records, Belfonti’s company filed 38 eviction lawsuits against Sunset Ridge renter households last year. A full two-thirds of those lawsuits — or 26 in total — came in December alone. All of those lawsuits claim that the relevant tenants were behind on rent. Some of the lawsuits claim that a tenant household is one month behind on rent. Some claim two months. Some claim six months or more.
December’s flurry of legal filings marked a new era of evictions at Sunset Ridge, as the landlord stepped up its crackdown on tenants who were late on rent. In some cases, Belfonti’s firm issued eviction notices a handful of days after the grace period for rent payments lapsed.
That more aggressive tactic left renters like Alexandria, a tenant who asked to be identified by her middle name only, scrambling to hold onto the home she shares with her four-year-old daughter.
“I couldn’t think straight,” Alexandria told the Independent as she recalled panicking after finding a notice to quit taped to her front door last fall. “My mom kept saying, ‘They trying to scare you. They trying to scare you.’ ”
Her case so far has resulted in a non-final stipulation that allows her to stay in place in her Sunset Ridge apartment — a better outcome than what faced some of her neighbors.
So far, in 11 of the 38 eviction cases that Belfonti filed against Sunset Ridge tenants in 2022, a judge has ruled that the renter household had to leave the complex. The landlord has withdrawn eight of those eviction court cases, and has entered into stipulated agreements with tenants in 13 of those cases. The rest are still working their way through court.
Sunset Ridge is the only property that Belfonti owns in New Haven. Overall, the company’s 38 eviction lawsuits filed in 2022 make up a small fraction of the over 1,700 filed across the city last year. But in December, the landlord was responsible for more eviction lawsuits than any other property owner in New Haven — including Mandy Management, whose affiliates own thousands of local housing units. (So far in 2023, Belfonti has filed only two new eviction lawsuits against tenants at Sunset Ridge.)
Michael Belfonti did not respond to repeated requests for an interview for this article. His attorney, Chris Reckmeyer, declined to speak on his behalf.
Belfonti does, however, offer some insight into his real estate investment philosophy on the website of another property management company he operates, MCR Property Management. A mission statement for that company reads: “Whether renovating residential units, supervising development and construction, or increasing occupancy and rental income MCR personnel continually strive to add value to the assets they manage. Their aggressive management techniques result in high investor profit and outstanding returns.”
The Belfonti Companies website sheds further light on the company’s and its founder’s real estate goals: “Michael Belfonti, the company’s founder, president and CEO, has always believed in acquiring real estate on the basis of its profit-making potential. This philosophy has enabled Belfonti Companies, LLC to successfully own and manage millions of square feet of real estate over the years. From its modest beginnings in 1980, Belfonti Companies, LLC has grown to become a market leader, successfully completing billions of dollars’ worth of transactions.”
Rent + Late Fee + Marshal's Fee = "OMG!!!"
Alexandria's oven doubles as a heater when the radiator shuts off.
Alexandria and her four-year-old daughter have been living in the same two-bedroom apartment at Sunset Ridge for three years. It’s the first place she’s ever rented on her own.
The apartment is far from perfect: the cabinets are falling apart and the heat often fails. She keeps the space cozy with scented candles, stuffed animals, and her daughter’s coloring book sea-creature art.
On Nov. 16, six days after the grace period for paying rent had lapsed, Alexandria received a notice to quit, which is the first legal document a landlord has served when looking to evict a tenant.
Days earlier, Alexandria recalled, she had explained to someone at the property management’s office that she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent on time. She remembers the person on the other end of the line saying, “OK, that’s fine.”
A single parent, she works 45 hour weeks as a full-time dietary supervisor and part-time prep cook, earning a paycheck every other week. She said she regularly tells management, “If I cant get it to you by the 10th, I’m gonna give it to you by the end of the month.” She often pays rent in batches over the course of the month, late fee always included. She keeps a list of these payments, and receipts from her money orders, in a yellow folder by the door.
When she found the notice to quit, she called Belfonti’s lawyer, whose phone number was listed on the sheet.
“OMG!!!” she doodled on the notice to quit as they spoke. In addition to a $50 late fee, she said, she would have to pay the court $95 to cover the costs of the marshal who delivered the notice.
On Dec. 1, Alexandria paid the full $1,200 for November’s rent, plus the fees, plus half of what she owed for December. The landlord pursued the eviction lawsuit anyway, which Alexandria planned to fight in court, representing herself.
Even before receiving the eviction notice, Alexandria had been thinking of moving out of Sunset Ridge. At least four times in the past year, she said, her heat and hot water have stopped working for periods lasting between a few days and a week.
According to Alexandria, it can take management days to address the issue, if anyone responds at all.
She recalled one Sunset Ridge office worker arriving at her apartment and declaring that the room wasn’t cold enough to warrant a heating repair; another advised her to boil water in a pot when the hot water wasn’t working, she said.
When the heat shuts down, Alexandria sends her daughter to stay with her mother. She wears her coat to sleep. She heats up her oven to 350 degrees and opens the door, letting the hot air fill the room. She learned the hard way that it’s too dangerous to warm up water on the stove for a shower; she winces remembering the burn.
Alexandria is certain that she wants to move, but between raising her daughter, working long hours, and navigating how to represent herself in court, she said she hasn’t found time to look for another place to go.
“I feel like [the eviction] is gonna follow me whenever I move now,” she said. “They don’t care about tenants.”
The Final Straw
Jake's kitchen, with a dysfunctional drawer and stove burner.
The now-abated mold in Jake's apartment sparked a visit from LCI.
Alexandria isn’t alone in observing a dramatic escalation in how Belfonti’s firm is responding to late rent.
Beyond the 38 eviction lawsuits filed in 2022, the company has sent out an unknown number of notices to quit that it has later withdrawn. Even in those cases, Belfonti’s eviction practices are driving tenants to move out of the complex — and in some cases, out of New Haven.
In October 2022, Imani (who also asked to be identified by her middle name) called a manager at Belfonti to let them know that she would have to turn in her November rent late. “We’re not doing that anymore,” she said the manager told her.
She was able to pay November rent on the 15th, five days after the grace period lapsed. “They sent out the notice to quit anyway,” she said. “Then they charged a $95 marshal’s fee and the $50 late fee,” even though the eviction was canceled.
Imani spoke about similar maintenance issues as Alexandria: the heat and hot water “works when it wants to,” she joked. She turns on space heaters around her apartment when the heat shuts off.
Meanwhile, a massive crack in her bathroom floor went unaddressed for months. “The whole bathroom floor was lifting. You could see through the cracks of the flooring,” she said. “They ignored my emails … It took them months of me calling for them to fix it.” In the meantime, she covered her bathroom floor with a rug and kept her eight-month-old baby out of the room.
“I’m ready to go,” Imani said. “I’m currently looking for new places. It’s hard because everywhere’s so expensive.”
A laundry room flood.
Another tenant, Jake, said he received a notice to quit within two days after the November grace period ended on the 10th.
He had already grown frustrated with what he described as Belfonti’s sluggish maintenance responses. It took a visit from Livable City Initiative (LCI) housing inspectors to get the property manager to clean up mold growing in the living room in the apartment where he lives with his partner, their baby, and their dog.
Meanwhile, one of their stove burners doesn’t work, their bathroom sink is breaking from the wall, and the laundry room regularly floods; they’ve reported all of these concerns, Jake said.
When the eviction notice came, Jake said he and his family decided to move to Meriden.
“That was the final straw,” he said as he carried his baby back to the apartment he hopes to soon leave behind. “We’re moving in April.”
See below for other recent stories about New Haven eviction cases:
• Eviction OK’d After Restaurant Shutters
• Eviction OK’d After “Lapse,” Rent Debate
• Mandy Leads Pack In Eviction Filings
• Eviction “Answers” Reveal Renters’ Struggles
• Eviction Suit Caps Tenant’s Tough Run
• Investor Skips Hello, Starts Evictions
• Eviction Deal Drops $1 Ruling Appeal
• Judge’s $1 Award Tests Eviction Rule
• Court Case Q: Which “Nuisances” Merit Eviction?
• “Or” Evictions OK’d
• Fair Rent: Dog’ll Cost You $150
• Rent Trumps Repairs In Elliot Street Eviction
• Though Sympathetic, Judge Blocks Eviction
• Family Feuds Fill Eviction Court
• Rent Help Winds Down. What’s Next?
• Eviction Withdrawn After Rent Catch-up
• Hill Landlord Prevails In “Lapse” Eviction
• Landlord Thwarted 2nd Time On Eviction
• Church Evicting Parishioner
• Hard-Luck Tenant Hustles To Stay Put
• Eviction Of Hospitalized Tenant, 74, Upheld
• Judge Pauses Eviction Amid Rent-Relief Qs
• Amid Rise In “Lapse-of-Time” Evictions, Tenant Wins 3‑Month Stay
• Leaky Ceiling, Rent Dispute Spark Eviction Case
This is horrible. Always the most vulnerable with the worst situations.