City statistics show 88,000 united warehoused!

Landlords claim that higher vacancy rate they created means we shouldn't have rent stabilization!

NYC Had 88,830 Vacant Rent-Stabilized Apartments Last Year, City Housing Agency Estimates

Roughly 1 in 10 rent-regulated apartments were vacant in 2021, Census survey data reveals — far more than the 61,000 vacancies landlords reported to the state.

BY SAM RABIYAH 

  OCT 20, 2022, 5:30AM EDT

STATE SENATOR BRAD HOYLMAN AND TENANTS STOOD ON THE STOOP OF 336 WEST 17TH STREET WHILE HOLDING PLACARDS AGAINST BUILDING OWNERS “GHOSTING” THEM.

BEN FRACTENBERG/THE CITY

 

EXCERPT:

What’s more, [landlord group CHIP's executive director Jay Martin] said, the new numbers suggest that the Council’s vote to continue rent regulation may have been invalid. “If HPD claims there were an additional 45,970 rent-stabilized apartments available for rent during the 2021 Housing and Vacancy Survey then the overall vacancy rate was above 5% and the housing emergency could not have been legally declared by the City Council,” he said.

HPD shared its figures after THE CITY documented a steep increase in the number of vacant rent-stabilized units as the city emerged from COVID lockdown in 2021, based on a memo from the state’s Homes and Community Renewal agency. Our reporting showed that:

·       Between January 2020 and January 2021, the state’s count of vacant rent-stabilized apartments nearly doubled, to more than 61,000.
·       Landlords registered tens of thousands fewer rent stabilized apartments with the state than they did previously, declining to 857,791 units registered for 2021 — potentially leaving those apartments off the radar for rent law enforcement.
·       In all, the state numbers show a loss of over 95,000 stabilized apartments for rent after 2019 — the year a major overhaul in Albany of the state’s rent laws blocked landlords from significantly jacking up rents on vacant units when leasing them to new tenants.
·       A lawsuit from landlord groups seeking to abolish rent regulation is working its way through federal courts and could reach the Supreme Court, potentially rewarding property owners who keep apartments vacant. Owner organizations are also seeking rollbacks of the 2019 New York rent reforms that sharply capped rent increases on vacant units.