RGB Season Opens
What Will Giuliani Try to Pull?
By Jenny Laurie

Spring rent-setting time is upon us, and Rudolph Giuliani’s Rent Guidelines Board is awakening from its hibernation after the Mayor’s 1997 re-election campaign.

But the current RGB remains an unknown quantity until the Mayor fills four vacant spots on the nine-member panel: one of the two landlord seats, and three of the five so-called “public seats.” The vacancies occurred when landlord member Joseph Forstadt, who had been on the board since 1984, resigned to avoid disclosing information that would have shown a conflict of interest. Last year’s guidelines were adopted with his seat empty. Public members Paul Atanasio, Paula Dagan and Elissa Fitzig have also resigned, either willingly or under pressure. Atanasio, a Conservative Party operative linked with the Pataki Administration, belligerently advocated decontrolling rents, but showed some interest in increasing housing subsidies. According to an anonymous source, he wanted the RGB to engage in more policy matters relating to rent regulation and housing production, and felt confined merely voting for guidelines dictated by City Hall.

Fitzig, a member for two seasons, almost never spoke or sought information from staff, while obediently voting the Giuliani party line. She appeared to be uncomfortable in public life, and reportedly wanted off the board. Tenant members David Pagan and Ken Rosenfeld will remain, even though Rosenfeld’s term has expired.

The Mayor’s opportunity this year is to load the board with members who could come up with new decontrol mechanisms or allow vacancy increases beyond the 20-percent-plus set by the 1997 law.

Weighing against that possibility are unofficial rumored findings that landlord operating costs are very low, especially taxes and fuel. Fuel prices everywhere are their lowest in years, and consumption is low too because of the mild and short winter. Actual final price measurements are not taken until April, but the rumored price findings track the national trend of a low inflation rate that continues to sink. Mortgage costs are the lowest in 16 years: service fees are down and terms are longer and more generous.

With little else going on for tenants on the legislative front in 1998, the Rent Guidelines Board’s conservative, pro-landlord nature bears careful watching.