Home rule -- taking control over rent regulation and evictions back from the State and giving it to the City is important! Below,
(1) Bennett Baumer of the Met Council on Housing lists the reasons relating to the Rent Guidelines Board, and
(2) Kenny Schaeffer of the Met Council on Housing lists the broader possibilities.
With Home Rule, the City could. . .
(Click on "read more" for the long list!)
click here for photo
- Strengthen code enforcement by allowing the city's housing agency and the Rent Guidelines Board to bar slumlords from collecting rent increases.
- Get rid of the state mandated 20% vacancy allowance which has caused huge rent spikes in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, and return control over vacancy allowances to the RGB (which set allowances around 10% between 1970 and 1997).
- Require owners to file income and expense forms with the RGB so that rent setting could be based on timely information from landlords.
- Require City Council consent of Rent Guidelines Board appointments so that the members who set rent increases for over 1 million apartments resemble the city's renters. Currently,only one of the 9 members is a renter and all are high income professionals.
And in the broader scheme of things, home rule could
- End vacancy increases
- Regulate units losing subsidies including
Mitchel-Lama and Section 8,
- Re-regulate those apartment that have been taken out of rent stabilization because they were
- vacant and their renovated rents are $2000+ or more, or
- occupied, and thier rents are $ 2000 or more and the household income exceeds $175,000 for two consecutive years
- Re-regulate decontrolled
apartments, and
- Close all of the loopholes created in 1994, 1997 and 2003 by the state legislature narrowing succession rights, expanding
eviction grounds, and generally weakening rent and eviction protections.
For more info contact Metropolitan Council on Housing at (212) 979-6238 or visit www.metcouncil.net.
