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> Rent-regulated apartments, often the only homes in New York that people of modest means can afford, are vanishing as gentrification surges inexorably through

> Rent-regulated apartments, often the only homes in New York that people of modest means can afford, are vanishing as gentrification surges inexorably through the city’s neighborhoods Rent regulation in NYC is easily the least effective way to make housing affordable for people of "modest means". It's criticized even by advocates of affordable housing for this reason. The only reason it still exists is because there are a large number of tenants grandfathered into the system (over a third of all NYC tenants) and that makes for a formidable voting bloc. Rent control is all-but-gone - only a very small number of units are still eligible, and that's because the tenant has lived there continuously since 1975. Rent stabilization is less broken, but still horribly broken. Anybody can live in a rent-stabilized unit, regardless of whether or not they'd be able to afford the market rents, and there's no effort made to make those units available to people who can't afford market rents. There are plenty of other programs in NYC, like Mitchell-Lama, which are much more effective at providing affordable housing. Rent regulation is not one of them.

busterarm 8y ago
> since 1975 Early 1970, actually. > Anybody can live in a rent-stabilized unit, regardless of whether or not they'd be able to afford the market rents, and there's no effort made to make those units available to people who can't afford market rents. But there is a strong effort to eliminate these units. Most of the rent stabilized inventory is not in desirable places to live. The rent can be increased every two years. The rent guidelines board has voted for a freeze only one time in its 49 year history. On average the increase is 2% every vote and two increases of about 7.5% in the last 5 years. This interest compounds, obviously and also scales up MCI rent increases for capital improvements. Once your rent hits $2700/mo, you are no longer stabilized. If you actually work out some examples, you'll find from this chart that rent stabilized tenants have had their rent increased _at minimum_ by roughly 34% for two-year leases in the last decade. If your landlord is anything like mine, it's probably close to 45%. http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/guidelines/aptorders2018.pdf http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/guideline...
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > Once your rent hits $2700/mo, you are no longer stabilized. That's actually not true. At $2700, landlords have the option to petition for deregulation, but there's no guarantee that they'll succeed. Under $2700, they can't petition for a high rent deregulation. The income threshold also only kicks in at this threshold, so a unit rented for $2000 can be occupied by a person who makes $500,000/year, and there's nothing that the landlord can do about it. In addition, I'd have to check, but I believe the increase for the two years before DeBlasio was reelected was 0% for single-year leases.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    They don't have to bother with that, they just don't renew your lease or use the court to evict you and the apartment automatically becomes unregulated. I've seen this happen in building after building going on 20 years now. Usually they just wait for a few tenants to hit around 2500/mo and then stop renewing leases and let the vacancy rate pull the rents over the threshold for them. It's really easy. (Note: they also lowered the tenant's personal income threshold in 2015 to ~200k/yr for two consecutive years)
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > They don't have to bother with that, they just don't renew your lease They are required to renew the leases of stabilized tenants. > or use the court to evict you and the apartment automatically becomes unregulated. Nope, the apartment is still regulated even if they re-rent it. They have to go through the deregulation process through the courts if they want to take it off rent regulations.
      - busterarm 8y ago
        > They are required to renew the leases of stabilized tenants. Most public benefit programs in NYC require you keep on-file a current lease agreement. Withholding a paper lease is a deliberate tactic to make people choose between keeping their apartment and keeping their benefits. I mean, we can keep doing this back and forth about where we agree on how things should work and I'll agree with you, but then I can tell you about how my family or I have been going to court with our landlord at least every other year since the late 80s. I am a rent controlled tenant in a 95% rent stabilized building and the landlord does incredibly shady shit to try and get myself and others out. In fact we're going through the regular "didn't pay rent" routine right now that will bring me to court again probably this August or September -- the bank checks that I send certified mail every month are being refused delivery by the management company again.
busterarm 8y ago
> like Mitchell-Lama There are only 45000 of these left in the city. 30,000 of these are co-ops. If you discount the co-ops that leaves you with just above half of the inventory of rent-controlled units. My single-mother sat on the waiting list for over 20 years before giving up and we were really poor.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > There are only 45000 of these left in the city. 30,000 of these are co-ops. If you discount the co-ops that leaves you with just above half of the inventory of rent-controlled units. Why discount coops? They're units too. In any case, I didn't say Mitchell-Lama as it exists today is sufficient, but it's a thousand times better at achieving the stated goal.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    Because the same way rent-controlled units trend towards deregulation as a result of death, Mitchell-Lama co-ops trend towards privatization and no longer being a part of the Mitchell-Lama system.

busterarm 8y ago

> since 1975 Early 1970, actually. > Anybody can live in a rent-stabilized unit, regardless of whether or not they'd be able to afford the market rents, and there's no effort made to make those units available to people who can't afford market rents. But there is a strong effort to eliminate these units. Most of the rent stabilized inventory is not in desirable places to live. The rent can be increased every two years. The rent guidelines board has voted for a freeze only one time in its 49 year history. On average the increase is 2% every vote and two increases of about 7.5% in the last 5 years. This interest compounds, obviously and also scales up MCI rent increases for capital improvements. Once your rent hits $2700/mo, you are no longer stabilized. If you actually work out some examples, you'll find from this chart that rent stabilized tenants have had their rent increased _at minimum_ by roughly 34% for two-year leases in the last decade. If your landlord is anything like mine, it's probably close to 45%. http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/guidelines/aptorders2018.pdf http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/rentguidelinesboard/pdf/guideline...

chimeracoder 8y ago
> Once your rent hits $2700/mo, you are no longer stabilized. That's actually not true. At $2700, landlords have the option to petition for deregulation, but there's no guarantee that they'll succeed. Under $2700, they can't petition for a high rent deregulation. The income threshold also only kicks in at this threshold, so a unit rented for $2000 can be occupied by a person who makes $500,000/year, and there's nothing that the landlord can do about it. In addition, I'd have to check, but I believe the increase for the two years before DeBlasio was reelected was 0% for single-year leases.
- busterarm 8y ago
  They don't have to bother with that, they just don't renew your lease or use the court to evict you and the apartment automatically becomes unregulated. I've seen this happen in building after building going on 20 years now. Usually they just wait for a few tenants to hit around 2500/mo and then stop renewing leases and let the vacancy rate pull the rents over the threshold for them. It's really easy. (Note: they also lowered the tenant's personal income threshold in 2015 to ~200k/yr for two consecutive years)
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > They don't have to bother with that, they just don't renew your lease They are required to renew the leases of stabilized tenants. > or use the court to evict you and the apartment automatically becomes unregulated. Nope, the apartment is still regulated even if they re-rent it. They have to go through the deregulation process through the courts if they want to take it off rent regulations.
    - busterarm 8y ago
      > They are required to renew the leases of stabilized tenants. Most public benefit programs in NYC require you keep on-file a current lease agreement. Withholding a paper lease is a deliberate tactic to make people choose between keeping their apartment and keeping their benefits. I mean, we can keep doing this back and forth about where we agree on how things should work and I'll agree with you, but then I can tell you about how my family or I have been going to court with our landlord at least every other year since the late 80s. I am a rent controlled tenant in a 95% rent stabilized building and the landlord does incredibly shady shit to try and get myself and others out. In fact we're going through the regular "didn't pay rent" routine right now that will bring me to court again probably this August or September -- the bank checks that I send certified mail every month are being refused delivery by the management company again.

busterarm 8y ago

> like Mitchell-Lama There are only 45000 of these left in the city. 30,000 of these are co-ops. If you discount the co-ops that leaves you with just above half of the inventory of rent-controlled units. My single-mother sat on the waiting list for over 20 years before giving up and we were really poor.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> There are only 45000 of these left in the city. 30,000 of these are co-ops. If you discount the co-ops that leaves you with just above half of the inventory of rent-controlled units. Why discount coops? They're units too. In any case, I didn't say Mitchell-Lama as it exists today is sufficient, but it's a thousand times better at achieving the stated goal.
- busterarm 8y ago
  Because the same way rent-controlled units trend towards deregulation as a result of death, Mitchell-Lama co-ops trend towards privatization and no longer being a part of the Mitchell-Lama system.