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FREEZE OUR RENTS!
Angry Tenants Disrupt RGB Meeting;
Board Votes 4-6% Increases; $15 Poor Tax
By Steven Wishnia
Chanting “Freeze Our Rents,” scores of outraged tenants disrupted a Rent Guidelines Board meeting June 22, taking over the stage after the noise forced the board to recess.
However, the night ended disastrously for tenants. Police escorted the protesters off stage, and the board returned to vote increases of 4% for a one-year lease renewal, 6% for two years, and a $15 poor tax on apartments under $500 a month.
The vote was 6-3. It was passed with no debate, except for tenants shouting “NOT FAIR!” The RGB also voted 5-4 to impose a $215 minimum rent.
“This whole board is a sham,” said Joseph Evangelis of Glen Oaks, Queens. “Some people pay more than half their income in rent.”
“There’s no democracy in this at all,” added Jeanie Dubnau of Washington Heights.
But with landlords’ fuel costs spiking over the last year, the board’s sentiments were closer to those expressed by landlord representative Harold Lubell. “It would be a mistake for this board to curtail necessary increases for considerations of affordability,” he declared.
Tenant rage had little effect on the RGB’s anti-tenant majority. Public member Edward Weinstein voted with the owner representatives 14 out of 15 times, with the one exception the board’s 7-2 rejection of the landlords’ opening proposal—5% and 9% increases and a $20 poor tax. Justin Macedonia voted with the landlords 12 out of 15 times, breaking with them to support smaller increases for single-room-occupancy hotel tenants.
RGB chairman Edward Hochman also voted with the landlords 12 out of 15 times. His sole pro-tenant vote was meaningless, and he cast the deciding vote for several anti-tenant proposals.
Hochman opened the meeting with a proposal for 3% and 5% increases and a $20 poor tax, which he said he came up with after “considerable consultation” with Giuliani administration officials. He repeated his mantra that “if both sides are unhappy, we’re doing our job.” Tenants reacted angrily, screaming “NO!” after each item, and one activist walked down to the front, holding up a “Lower East Side Tenants Union” sign like Sally Field in Norma Rae.
The proposal received one vote, Hochman’s.
Protests erupted again a few minutes later, when Lubell proclaimed that “we all serve one master.” Tenants responded with screams of “GIULIANI!” and “MONEY!” before uniting in a “FREEZE OUR RENTS” chant. Hochman hastily adjourned the meeting, and a group of women took the stage.
A silver-haired man in a Giuliani mask did guerrilla theatre with a woman in a mustache and unwrapped cigar. The woman, Emmaia Gelman, said most of the tenants in her South Bronx building were poor. “I can’t afford an increase in my rent, how can they?” she asked.
“How’re you going to solve a homeless problem if you’re creating a homeless problem?” wondered Anthony Williams of Picture of the Homeless. “Instead of building more housing, you’re raising rents. It’s just numbers and statistics. We’re not considered human beings.”
The board reconvened 20 minutes later, with Lubell arguing that one-fifth of city residents were living in poverty and were going to stay poor regardless of how much their rents increased, so landlords shouldn’t have the burden of supporting them. Tenant representative Jeffrey Coleman proposed 1% and 2% increases, saying that tenants’ income had decreased while landlords’ profits had jumped 21% in the last two years.
“A number of middle-class tenants told us they couldn’t afford to live in the city any more,” he contended. “A city with only the rich and the poor would be a disaster.”
“Tenants are not seeing increases in their paychecks of the magnitude that we are increasing their rents,” argued David Pagan, the other tenant representative. The board rejected their proposal 6-3, with Hochman voting for it after it was clear it would fail.
Hochman cast the deciding vote against the next proposal, for 4% and 6% increases with no poor tax. Tenants booed Coleman and Pagan when they voted for it.
SRO tenants will see 2% increases, as Justin Macedonia actually switched sides after the board rejected both a rent freeze and a 4% increase. Tenants scored a small victory here, as Coleman was able to change the preliminary guidelines so that SRO landlords cannot get rent increases unless 70% of their rooms are occupied by permanent, rent-stabilized tenants.
For lofts, the board voted 6-3 for 3% and 5% increases.
Perhaps the strongest indication of the RGB’s anti-tenant tenor came on one of the most arcane areas of the rent guidelines: how much vacant rent-controlled apartments can go up before the new tenant can challenge the rent as excessive.
Landlord representative Lubell proposed that the guideline should be either 150% over the maximum base rent or the federal fair-market rent, whichever is greater. Coleman called that “completely outrageous.” Vincent Castellano, the other landlord rep, said that $750 for a one-bedroom apartment “is hardly exorbitant.” Coleman replied that these guidelines would allow an apartment at the rent-controlled average of $480 to go up to $1,200, essentially deregulating it.
“This is truly a threat to the middle class,” added Agustin Rivera, the most pro-tenant of the public members. “How does this affect the middle class?” Weinstein asked.
The board voted for the 150% guideline 5-4, with Hochman casting the deciding vote. “It’s yet another jab at affordable housing,” said Coleman.