Stopping Big Rent Hikes at Ex-Mitchell-Lamas
The state has closed a loophole that allowed landlords to enact huge rent hikes upon exiting the Mitchell-Lama program. Under the loophole, owners of Mitchell-Lama rental buildings constructed before 1974 will no longer be able to raise rents to market rate by claiming that leaving the program amounts to a unique and peculiar circumstance. (Instead,…
The state has closed a loophole that allowed landlords to enact huge rent hikes upon exiting the Mitchell-Lama program. Under the loophole, owners of Mitchell-Lama rental buildings constructed before 1974 will no longer be able to raise rents to market rate by claiming that leaving the program amounts to a unique and peculiar circumstance. (Instead, the units will become rent-stabilized.) The new regulation comes as government programs like Mitchell-Lama subsidize fewer and fewer units in the city: Between 1990 and 2006, the city lost 27 percent, or 32,422, of its apartments in subsidy programs, according to data from the Community Service Society. Although the regulation may have an impact on many of Brooklyn’s Mitchell-Lama buildings, it won’t matter at its largest one. The present or future owners of Starrett City could bring rents at the 5,800-unit complex to market rate if they left Mitchell-Lama, since the development was completed in 1974.
Albany Bars Rent Rise for Thousands [NY Times]
Starrett City’s Owners Look to Leave Mitchell-Lama [Brownstoner]
Photo by West Side Neighborhood Alliance.
Market forces are market forces. places are hot until they cool down. I know someone who paid a million dollars for a penthouse on Park Avenue around 1988. That apartment was originally sold for a million dollars in 1928 when it was new. It took sixty years for the price to return to that level. Now of course it is probably worth ten million.
Why shouldn’t Manhattan be a playground for a wealthy? Beverly Hills is a playground for the wealthy. All of West LA is a playground for the wealthy. The Gold Coast of Chicago is a playground for the wealthy. The 16th Arrondissement is a playground for the wealthy.
New York has four other boroughs. There are other injustices, if you can call this one, far more deserving of public money.
The whole idea that this controversy is the rich vs the middle and low income (“Who will clean your toilets,” etc.) is ludicrous and misunderstands the social dynamics of this city.
NYC is full of rich liberals who are fully in favor of all manner of social subsidies, like rent stabilization, because they can afford to be.
The greatest resentment toward these entitlements comes from OTHER middle-income people, who are not lucky enough to have received them, yet directly or indirectly subsidize them. And yet can not afford to hire anyone to watch their kids nor clean their toilets.
I AM THE PERSON IN THIS PHOTO…
Rest assured, I am not an artist, but rather a community organizer working for an affordable housing non-profit based in Hell’s Kitchen.
I am also a resident of Brooklyn… paying more in rent than I’d like to, but certainly a mere fraction of the $4000 on my sign. Landlord greed and market pressures are transforming much of Manhattan (and parts of the outer boroughs) into a veritable playground for the very wealthy who can afford an astronomical 4k monthly price tag.
This photo was taken back in May from the 7,000 person, citywide rally to strengthen NYC’s rent laws: http://newyorkisourhome.blogspot.com/
Tossing aside the rather absurd assumptions about “undeserving artists” posted here, New York City’s housing crisis is having a devastating impact on our low- and moderate-income neighbors.
Oh… and despite what some here might say, I think that hat suits me just fine for sun-drenched rallies for tenants’ rights 😉
EAST NEW YORK — Not far from Starrett City, the middle-class housing development that has been much in the news of late, there is a former Mitchell-Lama complex once known as Fairfield Towers that is offering condos to middle-income families.
Now called MeadowWood at Gateway, this 21-acre, 19-building complex along Flatlands Avenue in East New York is undergoing some major renovations and 983 apartments will soon be ready for occupancy. It is said to be the largest condominium conversion in Brooklyn.
Fillmore Real Estate is handling sales of the units, which have prices ranging from $100,000 to $340,000.
Does anyone know about this new project in E. NY?
Carol Gardens,
Did you catch this part of my post before you cherry picked? “Either wages will rise or housing prices will fall because as you say people will move to get the services they want.”
And I don’t know any firefighters but all the teachers I know who rent or own pay market price.
either subsidized housing for ALL or subsidized housing for NONE
what we have now is nothing but utter bullsh*t
11:56 I don’t know about the particular circumstances of that building, but since it is in New Jersey, it can’t be Mitchell Lama, because that is only in New York. If anyone has anecdotal info on M-L, please post.
Hey 9:13, if you think that dude is wearing a beret, you are a total MORON. I mean, a complete and utter IDIOT. What a FOOL you are. A NINNY! That’s not a FUCKING BERET!!!! What a LOSER.