Bill to Require City Council Approval
of RGB Moves Forward
By Kenny Schaeffer

Aides to City Council Speaker Peter Vallone have agreed to introduction of legislation that would give the Council approval power over appointees to the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board.

The lead sponsors on the bill to create a more diverse and representative RGB are Councilmembers Chris Quinn and Stanley Michels, both Manhattan Democrats. The cosponsors include Steve DiBrienza of Brooklyn, Helen Marshall of Queens, and Bill Perkins, Margarita Lopez, Guillermo Linares, and Phil Reed of Manhattan. Met Council is working with tenants throughout the city to enlist additional sponsors, particularly in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.

The bill’s introduction came after several protests by Met Council and others fighting for affordable housing, including an overnight rally at Gracie Mansion last June and an all-night vigil at City Hall on Oct. 1, the day the rent-increase guidelines approved by the RGB last June went into effect.

The RGB, whose members are now chosen by the mayor, imposes rent hikes on the over one million rent-stabilized households in New York City. Its most recent guidelines are the highest increases allowed in five years: 4% and 6% increases for 1- and 2-year renewals, respectively. The board has also imposed an additional "poor tax" on low-rent apartments, a permanent rent increase of $15 or $20 a month on top of the standard increase, every year since Giuliani became mayor in 1994.

The current RGB contains nine prosperous professional men, of whom seven are white and two Latino in a city where half the population are people of color. The five "public" members, including the chair, are supposed to represent the interests of the public as a whole, not just the wealthiest New Yorkers. But Mayor Giuliani has picked only men from the business and finance world, even though half all renters earn under $30,000 annually. The 1969 Rent Stabilization Law cites the need for "the intervention of federal, state and local governments in order to prevent...unjust, unreasonable and oppressive rents and rental agreements and to forestall profiteering, speculation and other disruptive practices." [See box.] But RGB chair Ed Hochman and other public members have repeatedly questioned the wisdom of rent regulations, and expressed theories that the regulations are what caused and perpetuated the city’s shortage of affordable housing.

They argue that rent controls primarily benefit people who can afford to pay more, or that the market should be allowed to set housing prices. Given these beliefs, it is not surprising that they have failed miserably at the job of keeping rents affordable, their mandate under the Rent Stabilization Law. For example, between 1993 and 2000, the city lost more than half of the 415,000 apartments renting for $500 a month or less.

This failure has resulted in an ever-worsening shortage of affordable housing, especially since the enactment of vacancy decontrol for apartments renting for $2,000 or more, between 1993 and 1997. As the New York Times reported more than a year ago, even the middle class is now unable to find affordable housing. At the RGB public hearing last June, State Senator Marty Markowitz (D-Brooklyn) testified that when he recently got married and rented an apartment for his family, he had to spend more than half his salary to find a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.

The final straw in forcing the issue of replacing the RGB was the police atmosphere created by public member Ed Weinstein (a top corporate accountant) last June, in response to the heckling which has characterized RGB hearings for decades (and is more restrained than what occurs in the British parliament). Rather than listen to the testimony presented to him regarding the effect of rent increases on low-income New Yorkers, Weinstein took it upon himself to direct police officers to silence certain participants, and they roughed up several senior citizens in the process. The bill’s opponents will argue, as they have unsuccessfully against similar measures in the past, that the Council cannot modify the mayor’s power to appoint RGB members, under the 1969 Rent Stabilization Law. That law was passed by the Council to place post-World War II buildings under rent regulation, as prewar residences were already subject to the Rent Control Law.

Experts in the area of rent regulation agree that since the 1969 law was originally enacted by the Council, the Council retains the power to amend it, notwithstanding several subsequent amendments by the state legislature. The 1971 Rockefeller "Urstadt" law, which bars localities from adopting more "stringent" rent controls than the state, they add, would not prohibit the Council from requiring a more diverse and representative RGB. Changing the way board members are chosen would not constitute a more "stringent" regulation of rents -- although it would probably result in a more sincere and logical one.

The Michels-Quinn RGB bill will be one of Met Council’s main legislative priorities as we head into the 2001 municipal elections, along with housing-code enforcement, dis- tressed buildings and city ownership, restoration of NYC home rule by repeal of the Urstadt law, strengthening rent and eviction protections, and the creation of new affordable housing.

If your Councilmember is one of the sponsors of this bill, call to thank them for their support, and stay in touch with them to find out what progress it is making. If your Councilmember is not one of the sponsors, call and demand that they sign on!

If you want to work with others on this effort, or for more information, call Met Council organizer Dave Powell, (212) 693-0553, ext.6.