Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
The Rent Guidelines Board on Wednesday voted to freeze rents for one year for rent-regulated apartments, offering tenants temporary relief in the current economic recession caused by the coronavirus. The nine-member board approved a measure that freezes rent for one-year leases and for the first year of two-year leases, which can increase 1 percent during the second year.
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With more than a million New Yorkers out of work as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many tenants will struggle to pay rent on Friday. Hoping to pressure Gov. Andrew Cuomo to cancel rent for the duration of the health crisis, a coalition of housing advocates is leading a statewide rent strike on May 1, with thousands of renters already pledging to skip payments. But landlords, who argue rental income pays for the growing costs of building maintenance, are fighting for relief themselves.
Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
A report released on Thursday by the Rent Guidelines Board recommends a rent increase on rent-stabilized apartments to mitigate a surge in operating costs for owners. During the board’s first virtual meeting, members reviewed the report, which says rent increases should be between 2.5 and 3.5 percent for one-year leases and 3.3 and 6.75 percent for two-year leases. The recommendation comes as officials and tenant advocacy groups have called for a rent freeze during the coronavirus pandemic, which has put thousands of New Yorkers out of work.
Photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday urged the state to act on a number of rent relief proposals amid the coronavirus pandemic, including a deferment of rents for tenants, the use of pre-paid security deposits in lieu of rent, and an extension of the current moratorium on evictions. The mayor has also called on the Rent Guidelines Board–the entity that determines yearly rent increases for the city’s rent-stabilized units–to enact a rent freeze.
Image by Jorbasa Fotografie / Flickr
In front of a packed auditorium at Cooper Union’s Great Hall last night, the Rent Guidelines Board voted on rent hikes for the city’s one million rent-stabilized apartments, the New York Times reports. The board voted 5-4 and approved a 1.5% increase on one-year leases and 2.5% on two-year leases. The new rents will kick in on October 1.
Photo courtesy of the MET Council on Housing
Last night the Rent Guidelines Board approved rent hikes for tenants in rent-stablized buildings, making this the second year rents for such units have increased. This latest vote by the board allows landlords to charge their rent-stabilized tenants increases of up to 1.5 percent for one-year leases and 2.5 percent for two-year leases. As the New York Times points out today, “the increases were seen as modest given the history of the nine-member board.” Still, these are the steepest permitted increases since 2013 — news met with jeers from housing advocates at a public hearing held at Cooper Union.
Tenants leasing a rent-regulated apartment, buildings built before 1974 with six or more units, will soon see their rents rise for the first time in years. New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board voted to increase rent for regulated apartments on Tuesday, allowing an increase of 1.25 percent for one-year leases and 2 percent on two-year leases, set to begin Oct. 1. As the New York Times reported, the board, which had voted two years in a row to freeze rents, found that a 6.2 percent increase in operating costs for landlords in 2016 warranted this year’s increase.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Following two years of rent freezes, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board will take a final vote on Tuesday to determine whether or not rents will be increased by at least one percent. Earlier this year in April, the board voted to increase rents by one to three percent for one-year leases and four percent for two-year leases in a preliminary vote. According to the Wall Street Journal, the board released a study that showed landlord costs rose in the past year, a shift that landlords say warrants an increase in rents on new leases that take effect on or after Oct. 1.
No, you don’t have to suffer in a sub-zero apartment this winter, nor do you need to dine with mice and roaches in your kitchen during the summer. If you’re one of the many constantly finding themselves up in arms over a negligent landlord, rest assured there’s more that you can do beyond grumbling to your friends. Indeed, in NYC tenants have a lot of power, and the city has established a number of regulations to protect you, your family, and especially young children living in rental properties. Ahead is 6sqft’s list of the most common problems New York renters face—and some advice on how to get those issues fixed quickly.
At the end of last month, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to freeze rents for the first time on one-year leases for the city’s more than one million rent stabilized apartments, which make up about 47% of the city’s total rental units. They also increased rents on two-year leases by only two percent, the lowest in the board’s 46 years. While this historic ruling is a huge win for tenants, it doesn’t bring back the astonishing number of apartments that have been deregulated. Since 1994, nearly 250,000 units have lost rent regulation protections, and over these past eight years alone, New York City has lost more than 50,000 rent stabilized apartments.
To put that staggering number into perspective, cartographer John Krauss has put together a handy map that shows where all of these 50,000 apartments are located (h/t Gothamist). Using scraped tax bills, he plotted changes in the number of rent-stabilized units, building by building.
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