Rent Laws Renewed Struggle to Address Real Housing Issues Continues
by Dave Powell

On Monday, March 20, the City Council voted to renew New York City’s rent laws. Rent control was automatically renewed, and on March 28, Mayor Giuliani unceremoniously signed the bill renewing rent stabilization.

Although the rent laws—which protect some 2 million New Yorkers—were renewed with no weakening amendments, Council Speaker Peter Vallone prevented three key pieces of pro-tenant legislation from coming to the floor for a vote. Fortunately for tenants, these proposals, one by Councilmember Stanley Michels (D-Manhattan) and two by Stephen DiBrienza (D-Brooklyn), have no deadline, and the struggle for their passage is very much alive (see page 7).

The Council vote on the rent-laws bill (Intro 669a) was 46-3. Minority Leader Thomas Ognibene of Queens and fellow Republicans Stephen Fiala and James Oddo of Staten Island were the only dissenters, with Lloyd Henry (D-Brooklyn) and Al Stabile (R-Queens) absent. But the lopsided vote said more about Peter Vallone’s political aspirations than it did about the Council’s concern for tenant rights.

Vallone, who is running for mayor in 2001, finds himself needing tenant votes on the one hand, while addicted to landlord money on the other. As reported in the Village Voice on Feb. 1, Vallone’s campaign appears to be taking in more money from large landlords and real-estate investors than any other candidate in an upcoming city race.

However, according to some City Hall veterans, the landlord lobby didn’t push very hard to weaken the laws this year, unlike previous years. Some speculate that the landlord groups went easy on Vallone this time, having gotten what they wanted from the Council in 1999 with the severe weakening of the city’s lead-paint poisoning prevention law. Others speculate that Vallone’s mandate from the landlords was simply to prevent passage of the Michels resolution (Resolution 801) and the DiBrienza program (Resolution 1234 and Intro 729).

Tenant Power Not to Be Underestimated

But another force at play was the consistent tenant pressure put upon Vallone and individual Councilmembers. Met Council, along with other groups, kept a consistent circuit of visits to Councilmembers going. The Council was being watched, and they knew it.

Vallone responded with attempts to placate tenants. In February, he sent letters—at taxpayers’ expense—to all rent-regulated tenants, promising the renewal of the rent laws. Few doubted that the Council would renew the laws, but it is “weakening amendments” that have become the silent danger to tenants during renewal times. That the Council didn’t try to weaken the rent laws is something for which tenants can take credit.

Vallone Blocks Pro-Tenant Measures

However, Vallone did use his power to control what legislation will come before the Council to stall three pro-tenant measures.

One is Michels’ Resolution 801, which calls for the repeal of the state’s Urstadt Law. That law, enacted to prevent the city from nullifying Nelson Rockefeller’s disastrous 1971 vacancy-decontrol measure, bars the city from passing more stringent rent laws than the state. City rent laws are thus determined by the state Legislature, and must get through a State Senate dominated by suburban and rural Republicans with no understanding of or affiliation to tenant protections. Landlord groups have long fought to keep Urstadt in place, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to upstate legislators who city tenants can’t vote against.

Council resolutions (unlike bills) do not change the law directly: They are a petition to the Legislature. However, urban Assemblymembers and State Senators have said they will not fight for the repeal of Urstadt until the Council first asks for the power to govern the rent laws. Therefore, passing a resolution in the City Council is the first step. Vallone has kept Resolution 801 in gridlock since its introduction.

The Speaker has also stalled two proposals by Stephen DiBrienza. Intro 729, introduced in March, would abolish the “poor tax”—the $15 surcharge slapped on all rent-stabilized apartments that cost $500 a month or less—and reduce the maximum percentage of annual rent control increases. The poor tax, imposed in varying amounts by the Giuliani-appointed Rent Guidelines Board for the last five years, causes undue hardship to low-income tenants, while gouging what remains of the affordable housing stock. Between 1996 and 1999, the supply of apartments renting for under $600 dropped by almost 10%, from 714,000 to 651,000.

Intro 729 would also reduce the 7.5% annual increase on rent-controlled apartments to the annual RGB guideline for rent-stabilized units (this year, 2% for a one-year lease renewal). DiBrienza’s other proposal, Resolution 1234, calls for the repeal of the 1997 weakening of state rent laws—20% vacancy increases, decontrol of vacant apartments renting for over $2,000, and so-called “luxury decontrol.”

However, all legislation must go through the Council’s legal department (also known as “infrastructure”) before being formally introduced and receiving a number. Conveniently, the Speaker’s staff runs “infrastructure.” Vallone’s people were able to stall Intro 729 and Resolution 1234 from being introduced on bogus technicalities.

Council Politics as Usual

While Vallone could not stop the introduction of the DiBrienza program indefinitely, he sought to keep both it and Resolution 801 off the table during the renewal process. The Speaker is well aware that this was when tenants would be paying the most attention to the rent laws. He also knew that the additional legislation addressed the erosion of tenant protections, to which he himself has contributed. Anything calling for more than a straight renewal of the rent laws would force him to cross his landlord backers or ruin his public-relations campaign as a “friend of tenants.”

Therefore, keeping these provisions off the floor was a top priority. Vallone tried to bridge this credibility gap by offering a crumb to tenants: a provision requiring landlords to give notice to incoming tenants of an apartment’s recent deregulation (due to $2,000 vacancy decontrol). The logic is that a tenant could then file an overcharge complaint and challenge the deregulation if it was done illegally (which almost always is the case).

How this would work is questionable, as many tenants do not have the knowledge or resources to press an overcharge complaint with the state. But it does speak volumes as to the great hypocrisy of Vallone’s City Council—which voted to expand $2,000 vacancy decontrol in 1994.

Similarly, tenants who attended the Council vote on March 20 were subjected to a stream of hollow gesticulating by Councilmembers who have opposed tenant protections in the past. Of the 46 Councilmembers who voted to renew the rent laws, 35 voted against tenants on either the high-rent decontrol in 1994 or last year’s lead-paint bill. Housing Committee Chair Archie Spigner said he was upset that tenants had been “unnecessarily worried” about the renewal of the rent laws. He was booed vehemently by tenants in the gallery.

Nonetheless, now is the time for tenants to contact their Councilmembers, to see if their “pro-tenant” stance includes actually supporting the pro-tenant legislation which got left behind in all the hoopla.

Albany 2003: The Fire Next Time

There’s something else—perhaps most crucial—that tenants can take from this recent battle: The lack of a big push by the real-estate industry this time is a warning sign. By all accounts, they appear poised to use the State Senate to go for the kill when the state rent laws come up for renewal in 2003 (as they did in 1997).

The City Council got to play “good cop” this time. Look for State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) and company to return with the nasty “bad cop” routine. We’re going to have to pull out all the stops in ’03. Overturning Urstadt would be the best first step, because the sheep don’t want to be asking the wolves for any favors.

By all accounts 2003 is going to make 1997 look like a picnic.