Beyond Zeroes

The city's Rent Guidelines Board on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a rent-freeze on leases for rent-stabilized apartments over the next year. One-year leases would see no increase and two-year leases would have no increase in year one and a 1 percent increase in year two. The board will now start a series of meetings and hearings on that proposal—they'll be online for the first time in board history—leading up to the final vote in June. What to make of this move?

Mayors matter: Mayor de Blasio gets and deserves a lot of criticism from tenant advocates and their allies. But this is would be the third rent freeze of his mayoralty. By contrast, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Mayor Bloomberg's RGB approved one-year hikes of 4 percent and 3 percent.

Opposites oppose, then align: The board's tenant reps and landlord reps proposed vastly different guidelines. Tenants wanted a rent rollback of up to 3 percent. Landlords wanted an increase of up to 3 percent. Both their proposals were defeated by votes of 7-2, with the board's five “public” members in the majority each time. The final proposal passed by a 5-4 margin as both the tenant and landlord reps cast “no” votes—for very different reasons.

We're still debating the 2019 law: During Thursday's meeting, there was a side debate about whether the RGB had the authority to permit larger rent hikes on vacant apartments. Those vacancy bonuses were removed from the state rent law as part of last year's sweeping reform, but opinions differed as to whether local boards still had the power to permit them.

This only addresses part of the problem: If the freeze holds, it would be a plus for tenants. The extension of the state eviction moratorium announced yesterday will help as well. But for tenants in non-stabilized apartments, or for those who can no longer afford their current rent, this move does nothing. How many of those tenants are out there, and whether or not federal aid and unemployment insurance will plug the gap they face, are open questions. So far, state and local government have not answered them.

Stay healthy,
Jarrett Murphy, executive editor

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