Rent Board Backs Increases for Millions of New Yorkers
The News
A New York City panel on Tuesday signaled that it would allow rents across nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments to continue to go up.
The nine-member panel, the Rent Guidelines Board, backed increases on one-year leases of between 2 and 4.5 percent and increases on two-year leases of between 4 and 6.5 percent.
Those increases were similar to the ones approved by the board in the past two years. A final vote is slated for June 17, and any increase would affect leases beginning on Oct. 1.
Why It Matters: The rent vote affects a lot of people.
The nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments in the city are home to roughly a quarter of the population. Many of those apartments remain relatively affordable: The rent on a median, rent-stabilized unit is about $1,500, compared with $2,000 for the median, market-rate unit, city data shows.
The annual vote is something of a microcosm of the fraught discourse around New York City’s housing crisis. Board meetings in recent years have been interrupted by protests.
The panel’s decision aims to balance the interests of landlords and tenants. The vote, however, is a major source of tension between the opposing sides, with advocates for tenants calling for rents to be frozen or reduced every year and supporters of landlords calling for larger increases.
This year, the two members of the board representing the interests of tenants on the board left the meeting before any votes were taken.
“There can no longer by any doubt about whether this board or the administration care about what happens to the fabric of our community, our neighbors, our city,” Adán Soltren, one of the tenant members, said before leaving.