By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
With the expiration this week of current rent stabilization laws, legislators in Albany tussled over the future of rent regulations that govern the amount New York City landlords can charge new tenants once rent-stabilized apartments become vacant.
Current law allows landlords with rent-stabilized apartments whose monthly rent is at least $2,000 to evade rent regulation and charge market rates once the old tenant moves out.
That law expired at midnight Sunday, and was extended by state lawmakers to midnight Monday during continued negotiations.
More one-day extensions could be expected until lawmakers reached an agreement on whether to keep the $2,000 threshhold, said John Gallagher, a spokesman for state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose).
Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) has said he would like to see the bar over which rents could escape regulation to be lowered to $1,500, a move supported by landlords.
“Senator Padavan feels that that would accelerate the removal of housing from the rent regulation rolls, and that would be detrimental to the cost of living” for average working families, said Gallagher.
Padavan has sponsored two bills that between them would extend the current rent protections to 2008, would make buildings that receive government subsidies such as Section 8 fall under rent protections after their mortgages are paid off, and would repeal vacancy decontrol outright.
Padavan and a group of his fellow Republican senators have also suggested raising the threshhold over which vacated apartments would be decontrolled from the current $2,000 to $2,500.
Charles Assini, Padavan’s counsel, said the proposal was floated to “move negotiations along” and prevent the threshhold from going any lower than $2,000 during the current rent law discussions.
Michael McKee, associate director of the Tenants and Neighbors renters’ advocacy group, called the proposal “meaningless,” saying if it were implemented, it would only cause landlords to spend more money renovating apartments so the vacated units would rise above the decontrol threshhold.
When a tenant leaves a rent-stabilized apartment, the landlord can get a substantial increase in the rent if there are significant renovations made to the kitchen, bathroom and other parts of the unit.
McKee predicted the Legislature would not lower the threshhold to $1,500.
“There’s no chance that this is going to go below $2,000,” said McKee. “This is just Bruno posturing.”
Even an agreement to maintain the status quo was not desirable to McKee, whose organization staunchly supports rent regulation. McKee said the Legislature’s failure to pass a law abolishing decontrol would be “a very real victory for the real estate lobby and their checkbooks,” said McKee.
Frank Ricci, director of government affairs for the Rent Stabilization Association, a trade group representing landlords, said rent regulation was unfair to landlords saddled with rising insurance costs and an 18.5 percent property tax increase.
“We think clearly that the (vacancy decontrol) threshhold should be lowered,” said Ricci.
Half a million apartments were abandoned by landlords in the 1960s and 1970’s because excessive rent controls made their upkeep unaffordable, said Ricci.
He said the vacancy rate for apartments with a monthly rent of $1,700 was 10 percent.
“Tenants have a lot of choices for apartments,” he said.
The New York State Department of Housing and Community Renewal listed 156,958 rent-stabilized apartments and about 10,000 rent-controlled apartments in Queens in 2002. Tenants and Neighbors told the TimesLedger recently that its figures showed 198,244 rent-stabilized apartments and 9,251 rent-controlled apartments in the borough.
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
