Tenants Rally on Proposed HPD Regulations

 

On November 15th, our Coalition joined Housing Justice for All, Make the Road NY, Met Council on Housing, the Cooper Square Committee, Tenants Taking Control and other groups on the steps of the US Customs House.  This was just before the Dept. of Housing and Community Development hearing on its proposed regulations to implement the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. The Coalition submitted testimony, as did several tenant leaders, including the Park West Village Tenant Association's president Pat Loftman, calling for the end of warehousing and Frankensteining, two loopholes that have severely affected affordable housing in New York City. 

A proposed regulation on "first rent" would end Frankensteining as we know it. The regulation would set the first rent of a newly-configured apartment by combining the previous legal rents, and adding any applicable "individual apartment improvement" increases (limited to $85 rent increase) and Rent Guidelines Board increases.  Where a rent stabilized unit is combined with non-apartment space (such as hallway), the rent would change by the same percentage as the square footage of the apartment. 

Under the current lack of regulations:  

RS unit "6A" rent of $800  + market-rate unit 7A's rent of $5000  → new rent is whatever market will bear (such as $9000!)  It's not even clear if the new unit is rent stabilized. 

Under proposed regulation:

RS unit 6A's rent of $800 + market-rate unit 7A's rent of $5000  → new rent is $5800 (plus about $85).   

That would discourage landlords from warehousing RS apartments so they could combine them at an enormous rent.