The tenants of 267 E. 202nd St. no longer call that address home. At least not for now.

It didn’t come as a result of their ongoing legal dispute with their landlord, Peter Fine, who long sought to aggressively evict tenants while apparently eyeing the property for high-rise redevelopment, but an overnight fire that tore through the entire two-story home, displacing four families and complicating their lawsuit.

But Fine, a multimillionaire and real estate magnate whose portfolio includes Boricua Village in the Melrose section of the Bronx and several luxury homes in Florida, may still be on the hook for restoring the condemned property to pre-fire conditions. The latest adds another layer of delay for possible redevelopment of the space.

The legal effort by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) complements a Housing Court lawsuit filed by MFY Legal Services on behalf of tenants seeking repairs to the home as a way to stem eviction. Currently, the building has 178 open violations logged through HPD— one class I, 32 class A, 10 class C, considered the most pressing and in need of immediate repair, and 135 class B infractions. So far, HPD charged $2,682.75 in inspection fees and emergency repairs.

Waiting Game
The wheels of justice, however, have languished in delays, testing tenants’ patience. For some tenants, it was their last straw.

Cinthya Garcia, a mother of two forced to relocate to a dingy homeless shelter in Queens, is among the newly scattered tenants. She eventually moved out of that shelter to another shelter in the South Bronx and is now awaiting news from the New York City Human Resources Administration, a city agency that’s now finding a place for her.

“As of right now, I’m sitting in a shelter that is not a place for my kids,” Garcia said. “And if I could get a place that we could lay peacefully and not be around junkies and bugs and rodents, I would take that over anything.”

Garcia would be the second tenant to move on. Still, the shrinking list of tenants does not weaken their case against Fine.

Carrying On
Community residents are still keeping the cause alive, for the sake of its tenants and the preservation of that sleepy portion of Bedford Park. It’s for that reason neighborhood activists have opposed Fine’s proposal to build a high-rise apartment building. The neighborhood is currently zoned as an R8, which allows for buildings 10 stories or higher.

Uproar over Fine’s intentions has since ensued, with many seeing Fine’s idea as further congesting the narrow neighborhood. It also inspired a petition that blamed the neighborhood’s decades old zoning laws for making high-rise construction easy in the neighborhood.

Fine effectively inherited the building’s problems that happened under Genesis Realty, the previous owner and management company. Early this year, Genesis sent eviction notices on Fine’s behalf demanding tenants to leave within 30 days. Tenants suspected the evictions were part of an elaborate scheme to force tenants out so developers can bulldoze the building, thereby increasing the lot space, and allow for a higher building.

There were also instances of harassment including late-night visits from Fine himself, according to previous claims from tenants.

“The tenants need to be treated right, which they haven’t throughout all this,” John Reilly, a Bedford Park resident and expert on affordable housing, said.  Reilly suggested tenants should receive some punitive damages to make them “whole again.”

Fire
The fire occurred at 2 a.m. on Aug. 11, with flames tearing through the second floor, waking tenants.

“The minute I open my front door, it was like hell had just met me at the door,” Garcia said. “The whole hallway was so hot. I don’t know how a fire got so hot so quickly.”

One resident had escaped by leaping from the second floor, landing on a car 12 feet from his apartment and suffering injuries. Families have since set up a GoFundMe page asking for donations to pay for the victim’s hospital bills.

Marisol Jimenez, another tenant, was in her basement apartment as a firefighter attempted to rescue her and her elderly parents. “My father had to be pushed out of the way by a fireman; fire and debris threatened to fall on him,” Jimenez recalled. Jimenez and her parents are currently living with her brother elsewhere.

Six other residents and three firefighters sustained injuries.

Its timing led community leaders to consider a variety of ways the fire began, including the possibility it may have been set intentionally. A spokesman for Fine, Michael McKeon, criticized the notion of foul play as “outrageous, reckless and not supported by any facts.”

A FDNY investigation would later determine the blaze was an accidental electrical fire caused by a faulty air conditioner.

“Even in the most generous scenario, this fire is indisputably gross negligence,” Councilman Andrew Cohen, who represents Bedford Park, said.