Landlords Want NYS Lawmakers to Consider Impact of Proposed Changes to Rent Regulations

Rents are in the news again.

Dueling activists were chanting on the streets in New York near City Hall Park last week, each side with their own take on livability. While a tenants group called for lower rents, landlords did just the opposite.

Ah, summer in New York City.

The landlords want state legislators to consider the impact on property owners and contractors of proposed changes to rent regulations.

“On Albany’s chopping block are programs that allow landlords to raise rents following upgrades to their buildings,” reports Crain’s New York Business. “The Taxpayers for an Affordable New York coalition, which includes the Real Estate Board of New York, the Rent Stabilization Association, the Community Housing Improvement Program and the Small Property Owners of New York, was represented by a group that discussed how rent reform would affect them.”

“When apartments become vacant, we want to put in new plumbing, new electrical, we want to insulate all of the walls, to make the apartments more energy-efficient and warmer,” Chris Athineos, who owns 150 apartments across Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope, told Crain’s. “But we can’t do this if the government is going to pull these programs or drastically cut back on these programs.”

New York City lost more than 284,000 stabilized apartments between 1994 and 2016, according to the Rent Guidelines Board—attributable, housing advocates say, to a combination of loopholes and lax enforcement.

“Homes and Community Renewal, the state agency tasked with enforcing rent stabilization, declined the Assembly’s invitation to testify Thursday, according to Housing Committee Chair Steven Cymbrowitz. (An HCR spokesperson said they submitted written testimony, and that they plan on appearing in person in another hearing next week.),” reported Gothamist.com.

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who drew applause from those in attendance, endorsed all planks of the proposed rent law package. “We need to remove any mechanism that drives landlords to want to deregulate units and destabilize and displace communities,” he said, according to ny.curbed.com.

Seven of the bills would close loopholes that allow landlords to boost rents in vacant apartments and ultimately deregulate them, the web site points out, “while two others would allow municipalities across the state to opt into rent stabilization, and instate “good cause” eviction protections under the umbrella of so-called universal rent control. With the latter, the vast majority of the state’s 3.3 million renting families would be guaranteed a lease renewal and incremental rent increases unless a landlord proves an exception like refusal to pay. (A carve-out in the bill exempts buildings that are also a landlord’s primary residence.)”