NEW YORK CITY
Landlords deliver blow to tenants
By G. Dunkel
New York
A mildly worded section of a recent bill
passed in New York City, reestablishing something called
"vacancy decontrol," was a major setback for workers here. It
will also have a significant impact on rents throughout the
country.
"Vacancy decontrol" will now be in force for the next eight
years.
New York City is a real estate market like no other in the
United States. Two-thirds of families in the city rent rather
than own their homes. A majority of the rental units here are
covered by rent stabilization. These rental units are a
significant fraction of the total in the United States and a
major portion of all the rent-regulated units in the
country.
Rent stabilization is a government program to keep rents on
1 million apartments in New York City below market value. It is
bitterly opposed by landlords because it limits their profits.
But tenants, mostly workers and their families, know that this
program lets them live in the city.
Vacancy decontrol was introduced four years ago in a
last-minute compromise between landlords who wanted to abolish
rent stabilization and throw those who couldn't pay the spike
in rents onto the streets, and politicians who saw such tactics
as perhaps inflaming class struggle. It allowed landlords with
vacant apartments whose stabilized rents had risen to more than
$2,000 a month to rent them at market rates.
Landlords have various options for raising rents to over
$2,000 a month, in addition to applying rent increases. Over
the past four years, more than 100,000 apartments have become
deregulated. Michael McKee, associate director of Tenants &
Neighbors, said the renewal of the law means that between
300,000 and 400,000 regulated apartments will be lost before
the laws are up for renewal again in 2011.
"There will be hardly anything left in eight years," McKee
said.
Judi Cheng, a tenant militant, spoke at an earlier meeting
of the Rent Guidelines Board--the official group that sets the
allowable increases for rent-stabilized apartments. Cheng had a
solution for the high rents and resulting homelessness in this
city: "Evict the landlords."
Reprinted from the July 3, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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