(MSCC) John Mudd, June 16, 2019

I can speak for the MSCC and I believe for the groups (WSNA, HCC, CASA, MET Council, IFAHH…) who I stood along side during our Housing Rights activism on May 14, 2019, when I say that we were very happy to express our needs to the legislative body in Albany. We hope that the importance of our mission was understood. We wanted to overwhelm them with our estimated 3,000 fearful, housing insecure constituents from all over the city and in upstate NY, but more importantly, impart to them as passionately as we could our concern for the uncaring laws that are decimating our communities, cities, and state. 

There are nine bills to break the crushing antiquated, prejudicial, and wealth extracting laws that are currently on the books; nine bills to ease the housing insecurities for tenants in New York’s rental market; nine bills to prevent homelessness; nine bills to decide if you are with the developers in their pursuit of wealth or with the people in their pursuit of communities. 

Expand the Emergency Tenant Protection Act  ( S5040/A7046)- Allows any city, town, or village across the state to regulate rents and evictions when there is a housing emergency, defined by a vacancy rate of 5% or less. Currently, t he law has geographic restrictions that only allow Nassau, Westchester and Rockland counties and New York City to regulate rents in a housing emergency.

Prohibit Evictions “Without Good Cause” ( S2892/A5030)- Prohibits a landlord from evicting a tenant without a good reason. Valid reasons include failure to pay rent —unless the failure was due to an “unconscionable” rent increase,  defined as increases more than 1.5 times the local inflation rate. Other valid reasons would be “the violation of a substantial obligation of the tenancy, committing or permitting a nuisance, permitting the premises to be used for an illegal purpose, or if, under certain conditions, the premises are to be personally occupied by the landlord or close relatives of the landlord as their primary residence.” The provisions of the bill would not apply to owner-occupied premises with less than four units.

End Vacancy Decontrol   (S2591/A1198)- Repeals a provision that allows landlords to permanently deregulate rent-stabilized apartments when the rent reaches $2,700 or more per month and a tenant moves out.

Eliminate the Vacancy Bonus ( S185/A2351)– Repeals a provision that allows landlords to raise the price of a rent-stabilized u nit by 20 percent (known as the “statutory vacancy bonus”) when the apartment changes tenants. 

Make Preferential Rents Permanent Until Vacancy  ( S2845A/A4349)- Prohibits building owners from revoking a rent-stabi lized tenant’s preferential rent, a price agreed to at an initial lease signing that is below the legally allowed maximum for an apartment, at lease renewals. Landlords would only be allowed to change the preferential rent when an apartment is vacated.

End Rent Hikes for “Major Capital Improvements (MCIs) ” ( S3693/A6322)- Eliminates a law that lets landlords permanently raise rents on rent-regulated apartments because of building-wide improvements or replacement of a building system. 

End Rent Hikes for “Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs)   (S3770/A6465)- Repeals a provision that lets landlords raise rent on a rent-stabilized apartment in order to pass the cost of repairs o r renovations onto their tenants. These increases are permanently added to the rent, even after the landlord has recouped the cost of improvement. 

Extend Time for Overcharge Complaints  ( S4169/A5251)- Eliminates the statute of limitations for rent-stabilized tenants to file rent overcharge compla ints, which is currently four years, and allow the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, the body that oversees rent regulations, to review all relevant rent history when investigating complaints.

Rent Control and Rent Stabilization Parity  ( S299A/A167)- Caps the maximum rent increase on rent-controlled apartments at a rate on par with the Rent Guidelines Boards’ increases for rent-stabilized apar tments. Currently, rent increases for rent-controlled apartments are not set by Rent Guidelines Boards the way increases for rent-stabilized apartments are and can often be much higher.

“After years of bad policy dictated by Big Real Estate, we’re so close to leveling the playing field for working New Yorkers.  Let’s get this done together.” —Brad Hoyman, 5.15.19 email

While few of the legislatures are minutely conciliatory or uncommitted to any or part of the nine bills, it’s clear we have the majority of legislatures who whole heartily support those bills.