RENT GUIDELINES BOARD SOAKS NYC TENANTS

By A. Kronstadt

[July 2007] The New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) is a clear-cut example of too much power being concentrated in the hands of too few people. The nine-member board holds several meetings a year, culminating in a final meeting that decides the rent increases that will apply to a million apartments, housing 1.7 million New York City tenants covered by a series of laws intended to preserve affordable housing and keep soaring rents somewhat in check. All nine members of the board are appointed by the Mayor. The board is composed of two ten-ant representatives, two owner representatives, and five "public" members, most of whom are associated with the real estate industry, not as building owners, but professionals such as lawyers and architects. For many years now, the legislatively-mandated public meetings of the RGB have been lightning rods for tenant activists who shout down board members and chant raucously, in some cases forcing lengthy adjournments. Every year, RGB chairman Marvin Markus has tried a new tactic to bring the surly tenants to heel. In past years, this has included ejecting people as well as ringing the hall with police, and every year, the multitudes have responded with even more determined chanting and disruption.

At the final RGB meeting of 2007, which started on June 26 at 5:45pm, the repressive tactic of the evening was to have everyone entering the Great Hall of the Cooper Union building pass through a
metal detector manned by Cooper Union campus cops. A sign was posted threatening to confiscate all objects that could potentially be used as noisemaking devices.

The insult of passing through the metal detector made this crowd ornery enough to disrupt without the whistles and drums, and from the moment that Markus banged his little gavel, the 200 angry tenants did not give him much peace and quiet. Many of the activists were Hispanic residents of the Bronx; a vocal group had come from the Mirabal Sisters Community Center, named for revolutionary heroines of the Dominican Republic.

It was clear that the outcome of the meeting had been orchestrated in advance and that the debate occurring over the shouts of the protesters was merely for show. Tenant representatives Adrian Holder and Ron Languedoc pointed to the record profits that landlords have been making on market rate apartments and proposed an increase of 0%. The landlord representatives, Steven J. Schleier and Magda L. Cruz, introduced a proposal for a high increase in rent (5% for 1-year leases and 9% for 2-year leases). Schleier's never-ending speech on the virtues of small building owners was inaudible, covered by a chorus of "Blah-Blah-Blah" coming from all corners of the Great Hall. All of these proposals were defeated 7-2, with only those who proposed them voting for them.

Tenant representative Adrian Holder then did something rather unusual, trying to split the difference by proposing a 1% increase for 1-year leases and a 2% in-crease for 2-year leases, contingent upon
the building having no more than a certain number of housing code violations. Markus then came back at Holder, claiming that it had already been decided at preliminary RGB meetings that housing code violations were beyond the scope of what the RGB was allowed to consider.

Strangely, the discussion revealed that Markus and Holder were striving to find some kind of common ground in their desire to change the "one size fits all" system that mandates the same rent increases for all buildings and tenants. Markus then read a long statement, amidst boos and catcalls, in which he advocated reform of the rent regulations in which the income of the tenant would figure in determining the rent increase. In other words, Markus wants to force us all to reveal our incomes to our landlords.

Tenant rep Holder may be playing a risky game by raising the question of code violations and thereby opening the door to Markus' desire to base the system on tenant income, which is supposed to be good for low-income tenants, but is actually intended to soak those tenants with higher paying jobs, to the great profit of landlords, who would not have to open their books, though they would make tenants do so.

The net effect of income-based rent rules would be to turn low-income tenants against tenants with who are hanging in there economically, weakening the tenant movement through a divide and conquer strategy. The RGB would have to get authorization from the gang of thieves in Albany in order to change the rules either way. Even with the supposedly pro-tenant Elliot Spitzer as governor and the Democrats controlling the State Assembly, up-state Republicans like State Senate speaker Joe Bruno, who tried to abolish all rent regulations in 1997, are definitely capable of turning any statewide tenant legislation against us.

Nobody should push for changing the rent regulations fundamentally until the Urstadt Law, allowing Albany to dictate New York City's rent regulations, is abolished, and decisions like this can be made in New York City and not upstate.

Getting back to the June 26 meeting, the result was anticlimactic. After the tenant and owner rep proposals were defeated 7-2 and Holder's proposal for a building inspection-based system was ruled off the table, Markus quickly proposed an increase of 3% for 1-year leases and 5.75% for 2-year leases. A vote was held; the five public members voted for it; the owner and tenant reps voted against it, and those increases passed 5-4.

That was pretty much it; the board adjourned amidst the curses of the tenants and the dirty deed was done.

The RGB's decision to raise regulated rents once again by a hefty amount will have the inexorable effect of removing many apartments from the rent regulation system altogether, since apartments surpassing $2,000 per month rent become de-regulated when vacant, or if the combined income of the household surpasses $175,000.

Furthermore, as half of rent regulated tenants pay more than half their income in rent, many people will simply not be able to pay the increases and will be evicted. These nine people on the Rent Guidelines Board, appointed by the mayor from who knows where, simply have too much power over normal people's lives.