At ‘Rental Rip-off’ Event, Talk of Broken Boilers and Faulty Elevators
New York Times, Mihir Zaveri,
In one of his first acts as mayor, Zohran Mamdani announced that he planned to hold a series of “rental rip-off” hearings so tenants could complain about abusive landlords and “expose the ugly underbelly” of New York City. It was a pledge very much in line with the type of populist rhetoric that helped get him elected.
After weeks of anticipation from tenants and apprehension from landlords, the first of the hearings took place in Brooklyn on Thursday evening. But despite the name, it was a somewhat sedate affair.
The hearing did not feature people speaking into a microphone, to cheers or jeers from an audience. Instead, hundreds of tenants who had registered ahead of time got three-minute, one-on-one conversations with city officials to lodge their complaints.
The first hearing began in a big gymnasium. Down a hallway, the city had set up a small room with a dozen or so tables. People were given numbers and were called into the room one by one.
Days after taking office, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the hearings, an opportunity to hear tenants’ complaints about abusive landlords and poor housing conditions.
Soon, the room was buzzing in quiet conversation. One tenant complained about a faulty boiler. Another talked about a ceiling collapse. Often, phrases like “and another thing” or “on top of that” floated across the room.
One of the people testifying on Thursday was Andres Taveras, 46, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Mr. Taveres was No. 57, and his time breezed by, he said. He told two officials with the Buildings Department about the faulty elevators and electrical problems — he cannot run a microwave and a space heater at the same time, for example, without the power going out.
“I’m just hoping that things will change under the Mamdani administration,” he said.
High-ranking officials like Ahmed Tigani, the commissioner of the Department of Buildings, and AnnMarie Santiago, a deputy commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, sat listening. To people like Mr. Taveres, they did not give any specific advice. To others, they sometimes gave suggestions on how to band together with neighbors and build a case against a negligent landlord.
There was a resource fair providing information about housing policies and code enforcement. The hearings also featured a “visioning board,” where renters looked at housing-related prompts — like “How should the City support tenant organizing?” — and pasted stickers next to what they liked or didn’t like.
In April, after hearings have been held in all five boroughs, the city will compile tenants’ testimony. It expects to “publish a report proposing policy interventions” within 90 days, according to a news release.
Cea Weaver, who runs the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, said the city had considered a more traditional hearing format — the kind that Ms. Weaver, who was a housing activist before joining the Mamdani administration, might have used to build energy for pro-tenant policies.
But, she said, officials ultimately decided on something more intimate and direct.
“As somebody who has turned out lots of people to lots of public hearings over the years, it doesn’t always feel like you’re making an impact when you do that,” Ms. Weaver said.
Mr. Mamdani, who did not attend this week’s event, announced the hearings just days after taking office in January, underscoring the seriousness with which he views the city’s housing crisis.
He is in some ways threading a tricky needle.
The hearings and their provocative title build on his campaign image as a champion of tenants and cater to a left-leaning base that delivered him a commanding victory in November.
At the same time, Mr. Mamdani has drawn fire from landlords and their advocates, who have predicted the hearings will amount to theatrics and will be a distraction from governing.
Many older buildings are deteriorating, with owners facing rising expenses for maintenance, insurance and more.
Landlords point out that the rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments that Mr. Mamdani supports — and the property tax increase he has more recently floated — could add to those expenses.
“The real rental rip-off in housing is a system that pulls rent money away from repairs and building operations through excessive taxes and unfunded mandates,” Kenny Burgos, the chief executive of the New York Apartment Association, a landlord trade group, said on Wednesday. “Blaming owners without reform will only harm tenants and the remaining affordable housing stock.”
Mr. Mamdani and other city officials have cautiously acknowledged some of the landlords’ complaints. Dina Levy, his housing commissioner, has conceded that rising expenses are hurting landlords and said that the city should do more to help them.
But Ms. Weaver said she disagreed with the idea that the city should avoid holding events that seek “feedback on one of the largest things that the city does.”
“Under our administration, the mayor is on the side of tenants,” she said.
Critics of the mayor have also noted that the hearings are intended to solicit testimony from people living in privately owned apartments, when residents of public housing endure some of the worst living conditions.
But officials with the New York City Housing Authority, which runs the public housing system, attended the event, with several top officials sitting at a table in the resource fair area to speak with residents.
While the hearings may reveal new ideas or complaints, there are existing ways for city residents to alert officials to problems in their homes, such as by submitting complaints directly to the housing department or through 311.
The housing department and the Buildings Department, which will both have officials at the hearings, respond to such complaints every day. But there is broad agreement among renters, landlords and city officials that the system can fall short.
It may be expensive to reform it, and Mr. Mamdani is already grappling with a budget deficit that is limiting his ambitions. His other housing priorities, including subsidizing the construction of new affordable housing and financing the rehabilitation of older buildings, will also be costly.
Ultimately, the hearings will serve at least one goal important to the mayor, Ms. Weaver said: bringing New Yorkers into city government.
She said each attendee would be given a letter that affirms renters’ rights to organize tenant associations. Those letters can then be passed on to landlords, Ms. Weaver said.
“The best housing enforcement system doesn’t involve the city at all,” she said.
Source: New York Time