After the Pinnacle Group sent 93 of its buildings into a bankruptcy auction, tenants are calling on the city to responsibly steward their properties to a new owner.

Tenants at Pinnacle Group buildings rallied outside Brooklyn’s Federal Courthouse on
Thursday. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

Across 5,000 households, 93 buildings, 50 tenant unions, and four boroughs, tenants of Pinnacle are fed up.

Pinnacle Group’s portfolio of rent stabilized housing has been troubled for years, with rapidly accumulating housing code violations, no electricity, and deteriorating buildings.

Earlier this year the struggling real estate company put the properties up for bankruptcy auction. Starting Friday, Nov. 21, investors can bid on the portfolio.

Tenants, gathered outside Brooklyn’s Federal Courthouse Thursday, called on Judge David S. Jones to slow down the auction process and give them a chance to work with the city and make sure that a responsible owner—or tenants themselves—can take over.

“We are here because of gross neglect, harassment, and abuse of tenants,” said Charlie Dulik, a Pinnacle tenant on Ocean Avenue in Flatbush at the Thursday night rally. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen to our buildings. We don’t know if they’re gonna be bought by another slumlord. We don’t know if we’re gonna have electricity in our common areas tomorrow.”

Organizers with the Union of Pinnacle Tenants want to put the buildings in a community land trust, where tenants would control their homes through a cooperative board, or seek a deal with the city to make the buildings affordable in the long term.

When Signature Bank collapsed in 2023, New York City and the federal government helped funnel the 70,000 unit portfolio to a partnership led by the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), a group that specializes in preserving affordable housing.

“We do not deserve this willful neglect of our buildings. We deserve a say in what happens to our homes,” said Vivian Kuo, a Pinnacle tenant in Manhattan for the last five years. She said her building had broken elevators, pests, and leaks.

The auction of the portfolio comes amid intense deliberations over the future of rent stabilized housing in New York City. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has promised a four-year rent freeze for all rent stabilized units.

But critics have warned that a rent freeze could cut funding for the operations of some rent stabilized buildings—forcing owners to defer maintenance and causing tenants to live in substandard conditions.

Even some nonprofit developers, like CPC Chief Executive Rafael Cestero, have raised the alarm over how rent-stabilized affordable housing is struggling.

State rent laws passed in 2019 made it more difficult for owners to remove units from stabilization. That left some large rent stabilized portfolios, like Pinnacle’s, with fewer avenues to hike rents—a practice the company was known for before the law change. 

“They recklessly gambled and want tenants to pay for it,” said Dulik.

A spokesperson for the Pinnacle Group declined to comment on this story.

Here’s what else happened in housing this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Two weeks ago, New Yorkers passed three housing ballot measures that change how the city approves affordable housing projects. See how voters in each Council district weighed in on the proposals, which divided both lawmakers and housing advocates.

As outgoing Mayor Eric Adams weighs appointing new members to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board during his final weeks in office, tenant groups have a message for any potential candidates: don’t take the gig. 

The City Council last week passed the OneLIC plan, which will update zoning rules for 54 blocks near the East River waterfront in Hunters Point North. It’s expected to create more housing than any neighborhood-specific rezoning in the last 25 years.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

A group representing local plumbers is calling for NYCHA to conduct comprehensive emergency boiler inspections after a partial building collapse in The Bronx last month, The City reports.

The developers behind the senior housing project planned for the Elizabeth Street Garden site are suing the Adams Administration, which sought to squash the development by making the garden an official city park, according to Gothamist.

Debate over the city’s rules for short-term rentals like Airbnb rages on, the New York Post reports.

Outside the city, New York State is increasingly turning to hotels to house homeless families, according to NY1.

The post Pinnacle Tenants Demand City Intervene to Save Their Homes, And What Else Happened This Week in Housing appeared first on City Limits.

St. Thomas will be facing the best football team the program has ever played on Saturday, according to head coach Glenn Caruso, when they travel to Fargo to play North Dakota State, the top-ranked FCS team in the country.

“By a lot,” Caruso said.

To this point in their Division I journey, whenever the Tommies have faced a program that offers athletic scholarships — be it the likes of Northern Iowa and South Dakota in the past, and Lindenwood and Idaho this season — Caruso has viewed it as a chance to measure how much the Tommies have grown.

The meeting with the 11-0 Bison feels more like a exercise in survival.

The Tommies (7-4) will be without a number of starters due to injury, including graduate transfer quarterback Andy Peters. Caruso has no other choice but to play those who are able and hope for the best in a difficult situation.

“Any time you get a chance to play a great football team, there is a lot you can extract from that,” he said. “This is hopefully something we can stand on foundationally and be better for it in years to come.”

Nine of the Bison’s 11 victories have been of the blowout variety. Their closest game was a 15-10 win over North Dakota on Nov. 8. They have outscored all opponents by a combined score of 444-133.

Caruso believes this Bison team could be the best in the program’s illustrious history, which features 10 national championships.

“They’re just so complete,” he said. “Really good quarterback, really good offensive line. NFL(-caliber) receiver, the best running back we’ve ever seen. They pair that up with the best defense in the nation — by a lot.

“It’s daunting when you look at the numbers, so we choose not to look at the numbers.”

It remains to be seen how much the Bison’s top players will play, although Caruso said he expects to see all of their starters for the majority of the game.

It’s a game that has added significance for Caruso, who began his coaching career at NDSU, serving as an assistant coach from 1997-2002. He met his wife, Rachel, during that time and started his family in Fargo.

Caruso, a Connecticut native, said he’ll forever be grateful to then-coach Bob Babich for hiring him.

“To get in your Volkswagen and drive halfway across the country and sleep on the couch in someone’s basement and make nothing,” he said. “To go to the Ground Round every Tuesday and Thursday night because if you bought a beer they’d let you eat from the taco bar for free.

“Those were tough days, but they were also influential days. When I started my career, there were three things I prioritized: the chance to take on responsibility, the chance to win and the chance to be around some awesome people. I found it, and it just happened to be in Fargo, North Dakota.

“In doing so it led me to finding a passion for this part of the country. Aside from our family, the thing that I got from Fargo that I cherish the most is that I was able to see the type of Upper Midwest kids that I would get to coach if I stayed. That has affected and curated by career decisions more than anything else besides family.”

Caruso has retained ties within the Fargo community and has friends on the NDSU staff. He keeps a close eye on the Bison.

“I don’t always get to watch a team like NDSU during the season because we’re working,” he said, “but, absolutely, I follow them. I always keep in touch and I always cheer for them when they’re not playing St. Thomas.”

The Tommies and the Bison will be meeting for the 24th time, and the first time since 1966. The Bison lead the series 14-7-2.

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By MELINA WALLING and JOSHUA A. BICKEL

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — With a spotlight on the Brazilian Amazon, where agriculture drives a significant chunk of deforestation and planet-warming emissions, many of the activists, scientists and government leaders at United Nations climate talks have a beef. They want more to be done to transform the world’s food system.

Protesters gathered outside a new space at the talks, the industry-sponsored “Agrizone,” to call for a transition toward a more grassroots food system, even as hundreds of lobbyists for big agriculture companies are attending the talks.

Demonstrators protest against big agribusiness near the agriZONE during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Though agriculture contributes about a third of Earth-warming emissions worldwide, most of the money dedicated to fighting climate change goes to causes other than agriculture, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

The FAO didn’t offer any single answer as to how that spending should be shifted, or on what foods people should be eating.

“All the countries are coming together. I don’t think we can impose on them one specific worldview,” said Kaveh Zahedi, director of the organization’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment.

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Research has generally shown that a plant-based diet can be better for health and the planet. But many people in poverty around the world who are hardest hit by climate change depend on animal sources of protein for survival. People in higher-income countries have more options for a healthy diet without meat. But those people still tend to contribute more to climate change with their dietary choices.

“We have to be very, very aware and conscious of those nuances, those differences that exist,” Zahedi said.

An alternative universe at COP for agriculture

When world leaders gather every year to try to address climate change, they spend much of their time in a giant, artificial world that typically gets built up just for the conference.

One corner of COP30, as this year’s conference is known, featured the alternative universe of AgriZone, where visitors could step into a world of immersive videos and exhibits with live plants and food products. Those included a research farm that Brazilian national agricultural research corporation Embrapa built to showcase what they call low-carbon farming methods for raising cattle, and growing crops like corn and soy as well as ways to integrate cover crops like legumes or trees like teak and eucalyptus.

A cutout cow stands in a crop research field at the AgriZone near the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Ana Euler, executive director of innovation, business and technology transfer at Embrapa, said her industry can offer solutions needed especially in the Global South where climate change is hitting hardest.

“We need to be part of the discussions in terms of climate funds,” Euler said. “We researchers, we speak loud, but nobody listens.”

AgriZone was averaging about 2,000 visitors a day during COP30’s two-week run, said Gabriel Faria, an Embrapa spokesman. That included tours for Queen Mary of Denmark, COP President André Corrêa do Lago and other Brazilian state and local officials.

But while the AgriZone seeks to spread a message of lower-carbon agriculture possibilities, industrial agriculture retains a big influence at the climate talks. The climate-focused news site DeSmog reported that more than 300 industrial agriculture lobbyists are attending COP30.

A man cooks chicken in Itacoa Miri, Brazil, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

In the face of big industry, some call for a voice for smallholder farmers

On a humid evening at COP30’s opening, a group of activists gathered on the grassy center of a busy roundabout in front of the AgriZone to call for food systems that prioritize good working conditions and sustainability and for industry lobbyists to not be allowed at the talks.

Those with the most sway are “not the smallholder food producers, … not the peasants, and … definitely not all these people in the Global South that are experiencing the brunt of the crisis,” said Pang Delgra, an activist with the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development who was among the protesters. “It’s this industrial agriculture and corporate lobbyists that are shifting the narrative inside COPs.”

Workers take a break while maintaining a research field of cassava crops at the AgriZone near the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

As Indigenous people pushed to be heard at a COP that was supposed to be about them, some also called for countries to honor their knowledge of land stewardship.

“We have to decolonize our thoughts. It’s not just about changing to a different food,” said Sara Omi, from the Embera people of Panama and president of the Coordination of Territorial Leaders of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests.

“The agro-industrial systems are not the solution,” she added. “The solution is our own ancestral systems that we maintain as Indigenous peoples.”

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Harms from climate change are the biggest threat to world peace, the president of the United Nations General Assembly says.

“To those who are arguing that in these times we have to focus more on peace and security, one can only say the climate crisis is the biggest security threat of our century,” General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock told The Associated Press in an interview at the U.N. climate talks at the edge of the Amazon.

“We can only ensure long-lasting peace and security over the world if we fight the climate crisis altogether and if we join hands in delivering on sustainable development because they are heavily interconnected,” said Baerbock, a former German foreign minister.

U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock speaks during a plenary session at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Baerbock pointed to droughts and other damage from climate extremes in places such as Chad, Syria and Iraq. When crops die, people go hungry and then migrate elsewhere or fight over scarce water, she said.

“This is a vicious circle,” Baerbock said. “If we do not stop the climate crisis it will fuel hunger and poverty which will fuel again displacement and by that will challenge regions in a different way, leading again to instability, crisis and most often also conflict. So, fighting the climate crisis is also the best security insurance.”

But at the same time, dealing with climate change’s problems can make the world more peaceful, Baerbock said, pointing to conflicts over water in Central Asia. There, an agreement on water became “a booster for peaceful cooperation and peaceful settlement.”

Drought can take a long time to make an impact, but storms made worse by Earth’s warming atmosphere can strike in a flash. Baerbock pointed to last month’s Hurricane Melissa decimating Jamaica and two typhoons smacking the Philippines.

“Achievements of sustainable development can be diminished in just hours,” Baerbock said. That’s why foreign aid from rich nations to poor to help deal with climate disasters and adapt to future ones “are also investments in stable societies and regions,” she said.

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Baerbock, a veteran of climate conferences, said people scoffed at the young people of small island nations who filed a suit in the International Court of Justice about climate change, damage and their future. But the court’s ruling in July that action must be taken to limit warming “shows the power of the world if it works together,” she said.

Small island nations have said they will take the court’s decision to the U.N. General Assembly, where votes are decided by majority unlike the veto power of the U.N. security council or the consensus unanimity of U.N. climate talks.

“Now it’s up to the majority of the member states if they want to bring a resolution forward underlining the importance of this case,” said Baerbock, adding that she has to follow the desires of the majority of the 193 U.N. member states.

“The vast majority of member states has called not only at the last climate conferences but also here in Belem for transitioning away from our fossil world, not because of the climate crisis, but because they underline that this is the best security investment for all of us,” Baerbock said.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.