Rent Guidelines Board Confirms 2 and 4 Percent Hikes
By William Rowen

Meeting under the order of New York State Supreme Court Justice Louis York, on August 18 the Rent Guidelines Board let stand the rates they had voted on June 24: 2 and 4 percent increases for one- and two-year lease renewals, plus a “poor tax” of $15 a month extra if the rent is below $450 at renewal time. These rates go into effect on Oct. 1 and last until Sept. 30, 1999.

The RGB’s two tenant representatives, Ken Rosenfeld and David Pagan, sued board chair Edward Hochman for suppressing a report scheduled to be released in May. The report, called the “Recent Movers Study,” analyzed the effects of the Pataki 20 percent vacancy allowance enacted as part of the Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1997, comparing what people who had recently moved into vacant apartments paid against the rent for the same apartments in 1996. It was widely believed that Hochman refused to release the report because it showed large rent hikes, and would negatively reflect on Governor Pataki in the few months before he must face the voters in November.

Justice York forced Hochman to release the report just before the Aug. 18 board meeting. Hochman was under the threat of being found in contempt of an earlier order to release the report. As it was, Hochman released both the suppressed June 2 version, and a later, sanitized Aug. 6 version using some less egregious data.

Hochman and the city's attorneys failed to appear before Justice York on Aug. 26 for a hearing on compliance with the court's directive to release the study. York fined them $375 in legal fees to the tenants’ lawyer, Jerry Goldfeder, for failing to appear. The hearing was rescheduled for Sept. 3. During the dispute over the court’s directive to release the reports, Chairman Hochman publicly characterized Justice York as “Legal Aid Louie,” a pejorative reference to the judge's roots as an attorney for the poor with the Legal Aid Society. A document containing Hochman’s insult was submitted to the judge on Sept. 3.

Tenant will publish a detailed fact sheet on the new guidelines in the October issue. We are also preparing an analysis of the two reports and hope to publish it next month too.