Rent-regs push by Albany Dems
ALBANY — Rent regulations are up for renewal — and lawmakers are seeking to assure tenants that they are on their side.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) unveiled a wide-ranging platform on Tuesday intended to strengthen rent regulation laws and implement tenant protections. Current regulations expire in June.
“In the state budget, we made the property tax cap permanent to provide stability to homeowners,” Heastie said. “Now we need to provide that same level of stability for tenants by reforming our rent and tenant protection laws. We have seen far too many families forced out of the neighborhoods they shaped because of the cost of rising rents and property speculators chasing profits over people.”
Advocates rallied at the Capitol on Tuesday, calling for universal rent control, a tenants’ rights platform including the right to a lease renewal for all renters, and protections against untenable rent hikes and harassment.
“This year’s housing fight for stronger and expanded tenant protections is decisive for every New Yorker,” said Jonathan Westin, executive director of New York Communities for Change.
With Democrats in control of both chambers for the first time in a decade, many are hopeful that stronger laws protecting renters will make it to Gov. Cuomo’s desk.
One bill that is being floated would eliminate the major capital improvement rent increase program, reduce rents back to prehike levels and mandate that all pending rent-increase applications be denied.
A group of landlords that manages and owns more than a third of the city’s rent-regulated apartments railed against the proposition.
The Community Housing Improvement Program released a survey Tuesday that found that if so-called the MCI program is axed that 67% of owners would make fewer upgrades, 53% would be forced to use lower grade materials and more than a quarter said they would need to seriously consider selling their property.
Lawmakers said the current system is too complicated and must be simplified for the sake of landlords and tenants.
“The major capital improvement rent increase program is a flawed system which has been overly complex for property owners to navigate, and has been a great disservice in our efforts to preserve the affordable housing stock,” said Assemblyman Brian Barnwell (D-Woodside).
A second bill would discontinue individual apartment improvement, or IAI, rent increases currently allowed if a landlord makes minor updates or cosmetic repairs. Another measure would protect preferential-rent tenants by requiring rent increases upon lease renewals to be based on the preferential rate charged to the tenant as opposed to the maximum legal regulated rent.
Also in the package is a bill that would extend rent control regulations statewide, Heastie added. The expansion would require local governments upstate to opt in for new regulations and protections, such as limiting rent increases for certain apartments.
“I don’t care if you’re downstate, upstate, eastern state, central state, we are standing together with our tenants,” said Sen. Zellnor Myrie (DBrooklyn).