Tenant Campaign Stalls Massive Rent Increases
by Kenny Schaeffer

The 4% and 6% preliminary guidelines endorsed by the Rent Guidelines Board — while far too high, in the city that already has the highest rents in the Western Hemisphere—represent somewhat of a victory, in that initial indications were that the board would vote even higher increases.

When an RGB staff report on April 25 (using disputed methodology) showed a 7.8% increase in owners’ costs, landlords demanded increases as high as 12% to 15%, even though the RGB’s study of owners’ income and expenses showed at 11.8% increase in profit over the previous year, which in turn had shown an 11% increase over the year before. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced at a press conference that he would “nix” hikes above 8%, and it looked as if the Mayor was trying to appear as a “white knight” while the RGB passed the highest increases in recent memory. (In 1998 and 1999, when landlords’ costs increased by only 0.1%, the board still imposed rent increases.)

Met Council responded to the threat by inviting expert testimony before the RGB members on May 2 from Peter Marcuse of the Columbia University Department of Urban Planning; Celia Irvine, an expert in distressed buildings with Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields’ office; and Liz Krueger of the Community Food Resource Center, an expert on poverty.

The witnesses tried to give the board a sense of the economic realities for poor and working New Yorkers, and on May 4 we held a spirited demonstration on the steps of City Hall (see related story). So when the vote came in at 4% and 6%, it appeared that our efforts had paid off to a certain extent. Although some tenants booed the tenant representatives on the RGB when they voted for those guidelines, it seemed clear that if this proposal were defeated a higher number would have gone through, as there were not five votes for a lower number.

The retention of the low-rent surcharge, or “poor tax,” of an additional $15 per month for apartments renting below $500 is particularly disturbing, because it has contributed to the loss of half of all low-rent apartments since 1993. Met Council will continue to focus our advocacy against the “poor tax” until the final vote is taken on June 22.