Excerpted from State Senator Liz Krueger's monthly email update for September 2014:
"The most important change that we must win next year is a full repeal of vacancy decontrol, which is far and away the leading cause of deregulation under the current law. This is because even if a unit does not have a rent that exceeds the threshold – currently $2500 – landlords can do renovations to push the legal rent up high enough to deregulate. Other landlords simply choose to stop registering units with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal when a unit becomes vacant, and the new tenant often never realizes their apartment has been illegally deregulated. The ability to automatically deregulate vacant apartments once they hit a certain threshold has led to significant increases in tenant harassment, building deterioration, and real estate speculation. Ending vacancy decontrol would help address all of these problems."
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State Senator Liz Krueger:
Next year will be a critical one for housing policy in our city and state, and those of us who want to preserve and expand affordable housing options must be ready. That’s one reason I have organized a forum on September 18th on “Tenants’ Rights and Advocacy in A Critical Year.” Details are below in the Community Spotlight, and I hope anyone interested in housing policy will attend.
The elephant in the room is renewal of our rent regulation laws. I have been through many of these fights before, first as an advocate and then as a legislator. Throughout most of the last 20 years, rent law renewal meant a whittling away of tenant protections, with landlord lobbyists succeeding in winning with poison pill issues such as vacancy and high income decontrol, and anti-tenant rules regarding preferential rents. These changes have resulted in the loss of over 400,000 regulated units in the last two decades, and have dramatically reduced the amount of affordable housing in New York City.
When the laws were last renewed in 2011, for the first time in my memory, there were some modest positive changes to the laws, including small increases in the thresholds for vacancy and luxury decontrol, but these have done little to stop the loss of regulated units. Next year it is critical that we achieve more substantive positive changes to the laws.
The most important change that we must win next year is a full repeal of vacancy decontrol, which is far and away the leading cause of deregulation under the current law. This is because even if a unit does not have a rent that exceeds the threshold – currently $2500 – landlords can do renovations to push the legal rent up high enough to deregulate. Other landlords simply choose to stop registering units with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal when a unit becomes vacant, and the new tenant often never realizes their apartment has been illegally deregulated. The ability to automatically deregulate vacant apartments once they hit a certain threshold has led to significant increases in tenant harassment, building deterioration, and real estate speculation. Ending vacancy decontrol would help address all of these problems.
Beyond this critical fight, we must also fight for legislation to make Major Capital Improvement rent increases temporary surcharges rather than permanent rent increases, increase oversight for the frequently abused Individual Apartment Increase system, reform the Rent Guidelines Board process, provide relief for rent-controlled tenants facing maximum increases from the outdated rent control formulas, reform the rules for “preferential” rents, and address the continuing loss Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 buildings to rent stabilization. And, of course, we must fight to restore home rule for New York City, which is currently preempted by New York State from strengthening its own laws.
While renewing and strengthening the rent laws will justifiably get most of the attention next year, there are other critical housing policy issues that must be addressed in Albany. I am very excited about the mayor’s affordable housing plan to create and preserve 200,000 affordable housing units over the next ten years. It will be critical for those of us in Albany to work closely with the de Blasio administration on the legislation necessary to support this plan. Advocates of affordable housing will also need to be actively working at both the city and state level to make sure that as the details of the Mayor’s plan are worked out, resources are appropriately targeted to address the most critical affordable housing needs. The mayor’s plan is available athttp://www.nyc.gov/html/
The legislature will also be confronting the expiration of the 421-a tax credit, which is an example of how affordable housing policy can go wrong. Since its creation over four decades ago, the 421-a program has given away billions of dollars in tax benefits to luxury residential developments without fulfilling its promise of significant construction of affordable housing. I believe we should let this program expire and ensure any new tax credit programs support the mayor’s overall goal and are narrowly targeted to the creation of housing that is actually affordable for the local community. However, if the legislature decides to renew 421-a, at the very least it must be dramatically reformed to close the loopholes developers use to finance luxury developments.
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