Rent Guidelines Board

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As Vote Looms, Tenants Ask Rent Guidelines Board to Give Them a Break

RGB public hearing attendees protest embattled landlord Steven Croman. (Photo: Karissa Gall)

RGB public hearing attendees protest embattled landlord Steven Croman. (Photo: Karissa Gall)

How many landlords does it take to change a lightbulb? Metropolitan Council on Housing volunteer Mary Crosby posed the rhetorical question to members of the Rent Guidelines Board at last night’s public hearing at Cooper Union. “None, because everyone knows landlords don’t do repairs anymore,” she said. Here’s another one for you: how many owners does it take to change a lightbulb? You’ll never guess… it’s also “none,” she said, “because the owners have removed the light sockets during an eviction.”

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The City Just Made It Harder For Your Landlord to Harass You

notmoved

(Photo: Tarika Roongsri)

Today Mayor Bill de Blasio signed three new measures into law to prevent the tenant harassment and shady practices that have become so commonplace among New York City landlords, particularly those who own rent stabilized units in rapidly gentrifying areas like North Brooklyn, the East Village, Bowery and the Lower East Side.

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Rent Guidelines Board Weighs Rollbacks: ‘Oh Where, Oh Where Has Our Affordable Housing Gone?’

(Photo via Flickr, Angela Radulescu)

Tenants protesting sale of a Mitchell-Lama building  (Photo via Flickr, Angela Radulescu)

The Rent Guidelines Board met last Thursday ahead of voting to determine the maximum allowable rent increase for rent regulated apartments throughout New York City. The same review happens annually, but this year there’s a special sense of urgency as rents continue to rise amidst falling incomes and a precipitous drop in rent regulated housing stock, which account for some 1 million homes in the city. Proponents of rent regulation agree that the system is badly in need of reform, but it remains to be seen what exactly that might look like when Albany revisits the rent regulation laws, which expire on June 15. Many affordable housing advocates are worried that powerful real estate interests might prevail. But for now, it’s up to the RGB to decide whether or not to continue on a course of raising rents for rent regulated tenants or take the advice of some lawmakers and freeze rents.

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