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COURIER LIFE, APRIL 22-28, 2022
Rent board calls for immense increase
BY BEN BRACHFELD
The Rent Guidelines
Board has recommended allowing
significantly higher
rent increases on rent-regulated
apartments this year
than have been allowed for
more than a decade.
The board, which sets
the rates at which landlords
can raise rents in
the city’s nearly 1 million
regulated units, recommended
increases of between
2.7 and 4.5 percent
for one-year leases and 4.3
to 9 percent for two-year
leases. That’s well above
the rates seen throughout
the de Blasio administration:
increases never
topped 1.5 percent for oneyear
leases or 2.75 percent
for two-year leases during
the previous mayor’s tenure,
and rents were frozen
in multiple years.
The proposed rate increases
are not final: the
board is set to hold a series
of public meetings
in the coming months to
hear perspective from both
landlords and tenants, and
will hold a final vote on
rate increases in June.
However, the proposed
rates seem to reflect optimism
from landlords that
the Eric Adams administration
will usher in a new
era of owner-friendly governance.
Adams’ appointees
to the board have included
Arpit Gupta, an economist
at the conservative Manhattan
Institute who has
previously voiced skepticism
of rent regulation.
Landlords contend that
their costs have gone up significantly
in recent years
but haven’t been able to
raise rents in tandem; RGB
executive director Andrew
McLachlan said in a presentation
on April 14 that
labor, fuel, utilities, maintenance,
administration,
and insurance have all shot
up this year, with fuel and
insurance seeing particular
upswings, though taxes
have decreased.
“It can’t be understated
that across the board, increases
are up,” said Christina
Smyth, a landlord rep
on the board appointed by
Adams. “We’re just simply
trying to maintain equilibrium
here at the board,
we’re not trying to hit
home runs for either side,
we’re just trying to cover
expenses and keep it level.”
But the proposed increases
for rent-stabilized
tenants come as their market
rate brethren are facing
massive increases, often
hundreds of dollars,
after a brief pandemicera
dip, and as evictions
resume in New York following
the expiration of
the eviction moratorium.
Landlords are filing so
many evictions in housing
court that there are not
enough lawyers to represent
all of the bounced tenants,
as required by city
law, though the court says
that that is not their problem
and is continuing to
hear cases anyway.
Wages have in recent
decades not kept up with
inflation in cost-of-living,
especially when it comes
to housing. New York City
residents are also heavily
rent-burdened, meaning
they spend a high percentage
of their income
on their rent: 42 percent of
New Yorkers were spending
more than 30 percent
of their income on rent in
2017, with 23 percent spending
more than 50 percent,
per city data.
Advocates and pols responded
with dismay to the
board’s recommendations.
“With rents already
skyrocketing, workingclass
families will have
to find thousands of extra
dollars just to stay in their
homes,” the City Council’s
Progressive Caucus said in
a statement. “We need solutions
that protect tenants
and address the affordability
crisis in our city.”
The mayor’s office declined
to comment.
Advocates hang banners calling to cancel rent in Downtown Brooklyn on August 5, 2020.
File photo by Paul Frangipane