Freeze out: NYC’s rents are going up

Rent-stabilized tenants will not get another rent freeze next year, based on a preliminary vote Tuesday night by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board.

The board, meeting at Cooper Union, set a range of 1- to 3- percent hikes on one-year leases, and 2 to 4 percent on two-year leases.

The final vote will be held on June 27

Landlords and tenants alike slammed the decision, with both sides blaming Mayor de Blasio.

“It’s ludicrous,” said tenant advocate Ava Farkas, director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing. “The rent freeze has been one of the few things the mayor has done right on housing, so it’s mind boggling that in election year, he’s not going to do a freeze.”

Farkas vowed the vote would “fly back in his face.”

De Blasio does not have a vote on the board, but he appoints the nine members who sit on it.

The board, which froze rents on one-year leases for the past two years, approved the hikes by a 5-4 vote.

Landlords, who were bracing for the worst before Tuesday night’s hearing, also railed at the decision, citing the board’s own statistics as reason for a bigger increase.

“It’s inadequate,” said Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association. “Our owners would like to be in the same position as the mayor of the City of New York, where he can increase the rents of his tenants based on actual costs.”

De Blasio has jacked up the market-rate rent he charges tenants at his Brooklyn home from $2,400 in 2009 to $2,850 last year.

Strasburg cited the board’s findings that the cost of operating a residential building has increased by 6.2 percent and pointed to recent RGB data showing rent-stabilized apartments have experienced an increase in operating costs of more than 11 percent over the past three years.

The board has approved only a single, 1-percent rent hike on oneyear leases during that time.

The RSA, which represents 25,000 landlords throughout the city, was hoping for hikes of 4 percent on one-year leases and 8 percent on two-year leases.

The four board members who voted against any increase also criticized the outcome, arguing that lower rents are an important tool in tackling the city’s homeless epidemic.

The board will make its final decision after holding five public hearings .