The city panel that sets the cost of rent-stabilized apartments voted Monday night during yet another raucous meeting to approve a 2.75% increase for one-year leases that were signed after Oct. 1.
Inside a Hunter College auditorium on the Upper East Side, outside of which dozens of armed cops guarded the doors and protestors denounced the annual procedure as a sham, the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board, all of whom are appointed by the mayor, voted 5 to 4 in favor of a 2.75% increase on one-year leases and a 5.25% increase on two-year leases through Sept. 30, 2025 — a change that will affect tens of thousands of New Yorkers living in the city’s roughly 1 million regulated units across the five boroughs.
The increase for the third year in a row comes after a preliminary vote on April 30, when members endorsed rent hikes of up to 4.5% on one-year leases and up to 6.5% on two-year leases. The increases follow a series of public hearings in every borough but Staten Island, during which members of the public could submit testimony and weigh in on the proposal.
Ahead of Monday’s scheduled vote, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams issued a statement urging the board to “limit increases” amid the multitude of crises plaguing the city — the housing shortage, the affordability crisis, homelessness and rising evictions.
Hizzoner similarly expressed concern about a potentially exorbitant increase, but Mayor Eric Adams declined to back a rent freeze or a rollback that has been pushed by tenant advocates.
“We have to find a middle ground. I know New Yorkers are hurting,” Adams said during an unrelated press conference Monday. “We want a low end if there’s an increase.”
Tenant advocacy group the Legal Aid society, however, went a step further, calling for a “rent freeze” for all tenants in rent-stabilized units.
For their part, landlords of rent-stabilized buildings say it’s imperative that they bring in some extra cash flow in order to pay for rising property taxes, insurance, mortgages and maintenance costs.
In April, the RGB issued a report highlighting that the so-called Price Index of Operating Costs for buildings containing rent-stabilized apartments had jumped by 3.9%. Real estate taxes rose by 3.2%, the report said, and maintenance work by 3.5%.
“It’s distressing that the RGB did not follow its own data – which clearly supported the need for higher rent adjustments to offset skyrocketing property taxes and insurance premiums,” said Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, a pro-landlord group.
Landlords of market-rate units are not subject to the same guidelines and can raise rents in their buildings without the board’s approval.
Albeit much-maligned by advocates across the spectrum — landlords and tenants included — the increase still falls within the ballpark of the 3% hike the board approved last year for one-year leases and the 2.75% increase for the first year of two-year leases, rising to 3.2% in the following year. Earlier that spring, the board had initially floated a whopping 16% rent hike.
In 2022, the board approved the largest increase in nearly a decade — 3.25% on one-year leases and 5% on two-year leases — which signaled a dramatic shift from when former Mayor Bill de Blasio was in office. The board under his tenure froze rents for three years, including during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Monday’s vote to raise rents comes as the city kicks off its ambitious City of Yes housing plan, which aims to loosen archaic zoning regulations in order to allow more housing to be built nearly everywhere in the city.
Julianne Cuba , 2024-06-18 02:46:36
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