NYC Rent Guidelines Board Proposes More Increases for Rent Stabilized Apartments

From the May 6th New York Times: The board that oversees rents for New York City’s one million
rent-stabilized apartments proposed a range of rent increases on
Tuesday, disappointing tenants and their supporters, who say the
recession warrants a rent freeze.

In a preliminary vote,
the city’s Rent Guidelines Board proposed increases of 2 percent to 4.5
percent for one-year leases and 4 percent to 7.5 percent for two-year
leases. Last year, the board approved its highest set of rent increases
since 1989 — 4.5 percent on one-year leases and 8.5 percent on two-year
leases. The board will hold two public hearings, on June 15 and June
17; it is to take a final vote at a meeting June 23.

Landlords have argued that the board’s rent increases in recent
years have been outpaced by the rising operating costs of
rent-stabilized units. Tenants and some elected officials, meanwhile,
have called on the nine-member board to freeze rents for
rent-stabilized units, citing rising unemployment, falling median
household incomes and growing numbers of tenants in housing court
facing eviction for nonpayment of rent.

“This would be an
appropriate year to do that,” Wasim Lone, a tenant organizer with the
nonprofit group Good Old Lower East Side, said of the rent freeze.
“This is the worst recession we’ve seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”

A report released last month by the board’s staff found that operating
costs for rent-stabilized buildings increased 4 percent from April 2008
to last month; the increase was 7.8 percent in the corresponding period
in 2007-8. The report also found that the 4 percent increase was offset
by decreases in fuel oil and insurance costs.

The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn,
said in an interview that she would urge the board to impose a rent
freeze, in part because of the impact of the recession on tenants as
well as the report showing that operating costs had not risen
significantly. “We can create some relief for tenants without creating
an unfair burden for landlords,” Ms. Quinn said. “We believe even with
a rent freeze, landlords would continue to make a profit. They would
just make a smaller profit.”

Read the full New York Times article by clicking here.

The piece goes on to note that Legal Services NYC and the Legal Aid Society, along with the New York City Council, are currently suing the Rent Guidelines Board over its approval last year of a controversial supplemental rent increase for tenants who had lived in their units for six years or more. The advocates seek to strike down what has been characterized as “a poor tax” against
low-income tenants; that case is still pending.