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April 28, 2008
Council Gunning for Oversight of Rent Regulation
A bill seeking to give the City Council more control over rent regulation is expected to be introduced to the state legislature within the next couple of weeks, according to an article in this morning's Sun. The bill would mean that the City Council gets to vote on who sits on the Rent Guidelines Board, a nine-person body currently appointed by the mayor. In addition, the bill would significantly revamp how the board determines rent hikes because landlords' net incomes would be considered. Perhaps most significantly, the bill would mean that tenants won't have to renew their leases as long as they pay rent. Councilmember Letitia James (right) says she plans to introduce a resolution asking the legislature to pass the bill, which has the support of tenants' rights groups. Frank Ricci, president of the landlord-interest group the Rent Stabilization Association, says his organization opposes the bill. "This legislation ignores the reality of rising taxes, rising fuel prices, and rising water rates, to make this a more political process than it already is," he says.
Bill Would Give Council More Control of Rent Regulation [NY Sun]
Photo of Councilmember James by threecee.
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Comments
Rent control and rent stabilization have been utter failures. They mostly help those who don't need help (think of that 60-something in Manhattan with the house in The Hampton), caused the destruction of the South Bronx and other areas, and resulted in a massive amount of warehousing and coop conversions. When will they ever learn?
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:09 AM
rent control and stabilization are one of the few things keeping middle class and working class people living in this town. once it's gone, new york (especially manhattan) will just be another Geneva -- wealthy, homogenous, dull...
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:23 AM
The above comment (9:23) way off the mark. rent control and stabilization cause far more harm then good. For a detailed analysis, check out this link:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-274.html
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:29 AM
You're citing the Cato Institute!!!?????
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:38 AM
I'm always amazed people thing government rent ceilings work. It is a textbook case of what NOT to do.
How has rent stabilization benefited the city? How many rental units do we have today in 2008 versus 1970?
A better question is this: If you had say $10,000,000 in the bank, why on earth would you build a rental apartment building in this city with the constant threat of rent stabilization being expanded?
Posted by: Polemicist at April 28, 2008 9:40 AM
Yes, im citing the cato institute!
About the institute:
About Cato
The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane. It is a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Institute is named for Cato's Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution.
Any problem with it?
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:42 AM
Rent Stab is another of the "Easy Answer" solutions this ultra liberal City cant seem to get its mind around. Price controls always create a small benefit to the few at the expense of the majority. It is no longer about affordable housing but simply another example of the government pandering to the lowest common denominator while appearing to "Do Something" to address an issue or problem.
On the other hand, for some reason I find the pic of Letitia Jones strangely attractive...
Posted by: newsouthsloper at April 28, 2008 9:47 AM
Wrong 9:23. Had NYC eliminated rent control after WWII we would have God knows how many more rental apartment buildings. Higher supply = lower rents.
There are so many dumb things about rent control but here is one of my favorites: Say you want to assemble three tenements with 18 units so you can build a 200-unit apartment building. But the tenants in the 18 units have lifetime rights to their units. So instead of having 200 rentals, you have 18 rentals. This happens again and again and again.
And nobody has the "right" to live in Manhttan.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:49 AM
There is no more real threat of rent-stabilization be added to new buildings than there is of sudden ending of rent-stabilization.
You are free to build any new building without rent regulations.
Bigger question is why do so many developers of new buildings sign onto rent-stabilization (tax breaks) if it were so terrible?
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:04 AM
I find the Cato institute makes a lot of sense on a bunch of subjects.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:04 AM
9:23 and 9:38 why don't you crack an Econ 101 book? Apparently Tish never has. A much better was to provide housing for low income persons is to provide subsidies supported by all taxpayers rather placing that burden only on property owners.
I can't wait to vote Tish out.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:14 AM
10:04
That's the whole point. No one bothers accepting rent stabilization unless they get money for it. That isn't the way to have a successful, dynamic economy.
Just look at new construction over the past 20 years. Condo development has exceeded rental apartment development by a huge margin in terms of units brought to market. Event though what you say is true, developers are far more interested in building for-sale product.
Helping the poor and middle class afford housing simply shouldn't be the developer's problem. Developers build housing. They shouldn't become agents for the NYCHA. Forget the crazy bond financing and tax breaks. If someone needs help to pay for their home, simply have the government give them a check. The people end up paying for it one way or another - the process should just be more transparent.
At the very minimum, 2 things would make rent stabilization much less damaging to the housing market:
1) Peg the rate of increase to local CPI indexes, particularly regarding fuel costs. The data is clear and obvious - the political bickering should not be part of the equation of determining the appropriate rental rate increase. What killed housing in the city in the 1970s was double digit inflation and 3% per year rental rate increases. Landlords predictably just walked away from their buildings or stopped maintaining them.
2) Allow apartments to be rented at market when they turn over. In many cases, the 20% vacancy adjustment is still not high enough. Fine, protect existing tenants - but the corrupt game of scoring a rent regulated unit at a below market price is just wrong. The bribery alone should turn anyone's stomach who is concerned with justice.
Posted by: Polemicist at April 28, 2008 10:30 AM
If the city council gets its hands on the rent control board, kiss it all good-bye.
We would revert back to the old "Moscow on the Hudson" days.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:37 AM
Considering that every other day some council member is caught in a scandal it seems absurd that we would give them a vote in anything more. They are all crooks. Letitia James will work for only part of her constituents on this - and it won't be the landlords who are getting $82/mnth for a park slope 2 BR.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:37 AM
even economists at the nation's most liberal universities acknowledge that rent control/stabilization is terrible policy, which tells you something.
Posted by: z at April 28, 2008 10:49 AM
I agree Letitia Jones is very attractive in this pic.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:53 AM
Why is it you only complain about controls on rents? Why not complain that city fixes cab fares also?
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:54 AM
nothing strange about it - Tish James is very good looking!
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 11:00 AM
Polemicist:
I've read that Cato article before, and while it makes some good points, the bit about rent control hampering new construction because of the threat of expanded regulation is pretty much bunk. The city hasn't expanded rent control since the Second World War.
Rent control still impairs the city's ability to develop new housing, but that's mostly because it's so difficult to demolish a building with RS/RC tenants (and since every pre-1971 tenement is RS, this group is guaranteed to include all of the city's worst housing stock). The second half of the Cato argument really only makes sense for cities with room to grow.
Posted by: Zach at April 28, 2008 11:29 AM
11:29 - Here is a recent brownstoner post on expending rent control.
http://www.brownstoner.com/forum/archives/2008/04/potential_rent.php
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 11:43 AM
Zach:
They told developers after the war rent regulations would be expanded. A building boom occurred from 1950-1970. Many more apartment units were brought online during that time than from 1970 until today. Why is that? The city lied. They passed rent stabilization and all of those buildings constructed after WWII just prior to the law being enacted had rent ceilings imposed.
I'm also very much willing to listen to any other explanations regarding why so little rental housing has been constructed in the past 40 years. You are right that it is not the only reason, but it is a major one.
Why risk it? It's just not worth it, when condos still sell like hotcakes in this city.
Posted by: Polemicist at April 28, 2008 11:55 AM
It's letitia James, not Jones. She's clearly overplucking her brows. She needs to throw out that pearlesant violet lipstick. Her hair looks greasy and limp and she has an inch of roots showing. Not pretty.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 12:24 PM
Unbelievable -
it is 2008 and our elected officials think that price controls based on the 'income' of PRIVATE property is appropriate....
This is what happens when people with limited education about economics are put into power.
Letitia James certainly represents her ghetto consitutiency very well, her politics should help ensure that they gain a tremendous amount of political clout over the next decade - by expanding ghettos all over NYC.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 12:30 PM
Letitia James is only attractive if you like Fat women with a cheap conk and a dye job.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 12:39 PM
One guarantee: any legislation supported by Letitia James will NOT cover her own rental units. Do as I say and not as...
I agree with the above poster. It'll be nice to vote against her, though, being an incumbent, she'll likely win another term. That is unfortunate, as she is all but useless.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 12:40 PM
Letitia James comes from the Rev Wright school of economics......
We all see how well thats worked out over the last 2 decades.
Does she really own rental properties???? - Classic - I guarantee they are absolute slums compared to the professional management companies that she would instinctively call slumlords - this is the problem with our press - investigative reporting would demand that Letita James=Landlord would get through scrutiny, but fear that they would be called racist, results in zero scrutiny - and huge numbers of Blacks/minorites being victimized by the unrepresentatively large number of minority lawyers, doctors, politicians, accounts, preying on their own - see Council Women Diana M Gordon for perfect example.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 12:55 PM
all i can say is that i should be able to set the rent for the apt in the building i own to whatever i want and the market will determine what it can bear.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 1:01 PM
1:01 - I agree 100%
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 1:07 PM
11:55 is absolutetly correct. They could not build rentals fast enough in the 1950's and 1960's because developers were promised that new construction would never be regulated. In the early 70's they screwed around with the laws, culminating in the ETPA of 1974. New construction came to a halt, and thousands of buildings were sold to coop converters.
Dumb and dumber. And now dumbest.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 1:29 PM
Letitia James is one of the best. She's top notch in my book.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 2:12 PM
You must have pretty low standards, 2:12.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 3:53 PM
It's called politics. Plays to core constituency. Allows colleagues in Albany to say that they have done something about affordable housing.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 4:01 PM
The city should end rent stablization by allowing NO further lease transfers or addition of tenants.
The current lease-holders of Rent Stablized units should have the right to occupy those units until they die.
But lease-holders should be barred from adding new names to their leases. Marriage, hand-me-downs from parents -- forget it. Nothing. No extension of benefits under any circumstances. When the lease-holder leaves a rent stablized unit, the unit should revert to the landlord and become a market-rate property.
I had a one-bedroom, 6th-floor walk-up on East 83rd in Manhattan for years. When I left, my rent was $350 a month. After I left, the unit was renovated and the current tenant pays about $1700.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 4:54 PM
we must keep rent-stabalization alive. it keeps working class people in this city. if it dissapears nyc will be full of obnoxious yuppies.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 5:41 PM
Tish James is in office for one and only one reason, the councilman that got shot before her.
She has repeatedly proven that she is incompetent, one sided (that is towards poor minorities and no one else in her constituency). She was proded and pushed up in her status by some very liberal and demented white home owners in Ft Greene and the Ft Greene Association.
I know we deserve a better advocate and she will hopefully to soon.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 5:49 PM
TISH RULES!!!
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 6:35 PM
I know she is overweight, roots showing and all, but for some reason I am strangely aroused by her picture right now - Jungle fever maybe?
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 8:01 PM
I'm a landlord in Manhattan.
An older tenant called me today and asked how much I'd pay him to vacate his rent stabilized apartment. He pays about 1/4th the market rent.
I know for a fact that this guy has a stock portfolio worth well over a million bucks because he showed me his brokerage statement a few years ago at a lease signing while we were talking about the stock market.
I have several other tenants like this guy with excellent incomes, large savings, and no need for price controlled apartments.
My belief is that an income/net worth formula should be put into place so that only folks who really can't afford higher rents are allowed to remain in their stabilized apartments.
It's a joke that I spend my life taking care of apartment buildings while half the tenants barely pay enough to cover the expense of maintaining the building. . . not to mention that Bloomberg raised property taxes 18%. . . .
That said, I'll probably end up paying this guy big bucks to be rid of him once and for all. It's legal extortion, but what other choice do I have? I don't want to be this guys slave for the rest of my life.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 8:06 PM
overweight?
are you all twenty-year old gay guys?
Posted by: sam at April 28, 2008 9:16 PM
"My belief is that an income/net worth formula should be put into place so that only folks who really can't afford higher rents are allowed to remain in their stabilized apartments."
That's what welfare and section 8 are for. No need to create a whole separate nonworking system for NYC. Rent stabilization laws are not for the poor. They are for those who held a property long ago. They are the ultimate disinsentive for the nonworking poor.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 9:50 PM
Come on Sam, she is a big girl...
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:03 PM
let me interpret this comment by 5:41 correctly:
original comment - "we must keep rent-stabalization alive. it keeps working class people in this city. if it dissapears nyc will be full of obnoxious yuppies.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 5:41 PM
what this really means- " we must keep rent-stabalization alive. It keeps dysfunctional mooch alcoholics from ever having to get a real job and pay real bills. if it dissapears, nyc will be full of ambitious, hard-working go-getters who try and make a better life for themselves, all without taking a handout from anyone.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 10:06 PM
8:06--it's great to cast aspersions on some of your tenants who have resources, giving the impression that everyone in the building you own is richer than you, but, like 99.99% of the landlords in the city, you're happy to supply income details about your tenants without supplying any details about your own income. what choice do you have as a landlord? you could sell the building if it's so much of a headache...but i assume you're making a profit, AS ARE 99.9% OF THE OWNERS OF RENT STABILIZED HOUSING.
Posted by: guest at April 28, 2008 11:30 PM
11:30 pm,
It's quite obvious you NEVER owned rent stabilized housing. I will never defend slumlords, but I know for a fact that anyone under, say, 45 that lives in a rent stabilized apartment, lives better than the landlord. Especially after the last few years of hikes of all utilities, taxes and insurance.
The big misconception is that because stabilized housing exists, the people who need it are getting it.
I agree with the poster(s) who wrote that rent stabilization should be phased out [for all but anyone that is retired and/or on a fixed income] and pegged to a percentage of market rate rents like Section 8.
Posted by: guest at April 30, 2008 1:54 AM
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