Met Council’s Housing Program

• Renew the rent laws now!

• Repeal the Rent Guidelines Board’s “poor tax” surcharge on rents below $500.

• Repeal the Rockefeller “Urstadt Law,” which denies New York City home rule on rent regulation and lets Albany dictate the city’s rent laws under the corrupt political influence of the real-estate industry. The measure calling for repealing the Urstadt Law is Council Resolution 801, sponsored by Stanley Michels (D-Manhattan).

• Increase spending for housing-code enforcement, eviction prevention, and housing production.

• Get the city off of the “10 Worst Landlords” list. It is inexcusable for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to operate buildings in ways which would send other landlords to prison (that is, if HPD actually enforced the housing-maintenance code).

• Repeal the recent legislative undermining of rent stabilization, including $2,000 vacancy decontrol, minimum 18% vacancy increases, and high-income decontrol (which only benefits the owners of luxury housing—while shrinking the supply of regulated housing, putting more inflationary pressure on all down the line).