Could This Be The Last Stabilized Rent Hike for Four Years?
The Rent Guidelines Board voted Monday night to permit rent increases of percent on the city s million rent stabilized tenants With Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani promising to freeze rent stabilized rents for four years it could be the last increase for a while Tenants and housing advocates rallying outside the Rent Guidelines Board meeting Tuesday night Photo by Adi Talwar At last year s Rent Guidelines Board final meeting Zohran Mamdani was arrested outside put in handcuffs and escorted off the premises He and several other elected functionaries were protesting the board which sets allowable rent increases for around million rent-stabilized apartments in the city asking its members to freeze the rent Every year tenants come out here and we tell stories about how rent burdened we are how we can t afford to live here and it falls on deaf ears stated Elisa Martinez a rent stabilized tenant from Washington Heights This year the mood was different Though he wasn t there himself the excitement around the democratic nominee for mayor s proposal to freeze the rent during all four years as mayor was unmistakable New York City Comptroller Brad Lander who cross-endorsed with Mamdani during the primary was there as surrogate One million New Yorkers last Tuesday voted for candidates who disclosed freeze the rent Lander reported We are talking about people s dreams to stay in their homes and raise their families It s not too much to ask Patrick Spauster City Limits Dozens of tenants flanked Lander and filed into the Museo del Barrio in Harlem where the RGB meeting was scheduled chanting freeze the rent And though they didn t get their wish this year the rent guidelines board voted to increase rents by percent on one year leases and percent on two year leases a few tenants left with a sense of optimism for next year when they hoped Mamdani would be mayor I feel like the vitality is palpable in current times revealed Martinez who helped organize tenants in promotion of a rent freeze Knowing that we re gonna push a mayor into office in November that has promised to not only freeze our rent now but to freeze it for four years The percent increase this year comes after three years of rent increases during Eric Adams administration for a total of percent on one-year leases over four years The increases will affect new leases starting on or after Oct The increases are lower than property owners have pushed for They say that costs which rose percent this year according to the board s analysis are rising faster than rents can keep up While we are disappointed that the RGB once again adjusted rents below inflation we appreciate that they stood up to political pressure calling for rent freezes that would accelerate the financial and physical deterioration of thousands of older rent-stabilized buildings explained Kenny Burgos CEO of the New York Apartment Association in a report Tenants say any increase is too much People definitely need a break and we re tired of being priced out of the city commented Ander Lamothe a tenant rallying for the freeze Tenant groups point to the board s research which shows a percent increase in landlord profits function d u ac var s d createElement 'script' s type 'text javascript' s src 'https a omappapi com app js api min js' s async true s dataset user u s dataset campaign ac d getElementsByTagName 'head' appendChild s document 'u kmqsczew vunxutxmd' For chosen New Yorkers a rent increase can mean the difference between staying in the city or having to leave For Fracisca Guzman a rent stabilized tenant in Sunset Park it would mean that she could save more money for her daughter Guzman advised City Limits in Spanish that her rent has continued to go up even as her landlord fails to make repairs she reported The tenants in this room are a fraction of the tenants who committed to vote for a mayor who will freeze the rent explained Ritti Singh communications director with the New York State Tenants Bloc People are pissed off and we have a place to channel that in this November Alex Armlovich one of the four community members of the board voted yes to the proposed increases He noted that more than the private landlords who reported their buildings were vulnerable he was compelled by nonprofit housing providers the Public Preservation Corporation who testified to the board Everyone talks about opening the books they did Armlovich recounted City Limits According to a board account percent of buildings with rent stabilized units were in financial distress Howard Slatkin President of CPC raised the alarm about deteriorating rent stabilized housing stock in a City Limits oped earlier this month Failing to plan adequately for expenses shortchanges the well-being of residents and the future habitability of housing regardless of who owns the building he wrote Every year the board is caught in a tug-of-war between tenants and landlords The push and pull is by design the board has two owner members two landlord members and five population members to represent the general masses For the past sparse years that produced unhappy compromise rents have gone up but never as much as landlords have urged for Part of the difficulty is coming up with one number to suit a large diverse stock of housing Various of the rent stabilized housing stock are more than -year-old buildings that are entirely rent stabilized Selected have a mix of rent-regulated units and region rate units Others are newer buildings constructed with state tax programs like a The analysis is not comparing apples to apples announced Ann Korchak with the group Small Property Owners of New York Small property owners that are operating off their rent will really need these rent increases This is how we pay our expenses function use strict window addEventListener message function a if void a evidence datawrapper-height var e document querySelectorAll iframe for var t in a figures datawrapper-height for var r i r e i i if r contentWindow a source var d a figures datawrapper-height t px r style height d Former Mayor Bill de Blasio s Rent Guidelines board froze the rent three times during his term Following the vote Mayor Eric Adams who is running against Mamdani in the general poll as an independent criticized the idea of a rent freeze saying it would conclusion in worsening housing conditions for tenants though also revealed he wished a lower rent hike this year than where the RGB landed While the board exercised their independent judgment and made an adjustment based on elements such as inflation I am disappointed that they approved increases higher than what I called for Adams stated in a declaration As Mamdani made freezing the rent a central tenet of his primary campaign for mayor the board its independence and its decision-making processes have received even more scrutiny Mamdani has promised to upend the norms Even a supposedly modest rent hike in the midst of a cost-of-living problem will push New Yorkers out of their homes But as voters exhibited last Tuesday New Yorkers are ready for a city establishment that lowers costs instead of padding real estate profits Assemblymember Mamdani disclosed in a report Change is coming To reach the reporter behind this story contact Patrick citylimits org To reach the editor contact Jeanmarie citylimits org Want to republish this story Find City Limits reprint initiative here The post Could This Be The Last Stabilized Rent Hike for Four Years appeared first on City Limits
