The Albany "Compromise"
Rent Laws Renewed--But Greatly Weakened

Rent controls are still alive, but landlords got the biggest rent increases in almost 25 years.

A revived tenant movement--over 7,000 people in Albany on May 20 for Tenant Lobby Day, more than 1,000 in the streets outside Governor Pataki’s Manhattan office on June 12--beat back the real-estate lobby’s strongest attempt since 1971 to kill tenant protections outright or destroy them with vacancy decontrol.

But the landlord-bought politicians in Albany served their masters well. The "compromise" rent law brokered just after midnight on June 16 lets landlords raise the rent by 20 percent, and sometimes more, on vacant apartments. It forces tenants in Housing Court to deposit the rent the landlord says they owe or face eviction without a hearing. And in a provision slipped in while the fine print was being worked out, it opens the way for vacancy decontrol on apartments renting for $1,667 a month or more--or less, if the landlord can either find some way to scam the rent up to $2,000 or sneak an illegal increase past even-weaker overcharge protections.

This special issue of Tenant/Inquilino explores what the new rent law means for tenants in New York City.

Steven Wishnia