Mitchell-Lama co-op owners bought their units when the buildings were subsidized for affordability. Now some debate whether it’s right sell those apartments for lucrative market prices.
Deep repair needs and an alluring private market are pushing the mostly middle-class complexes toward the open market, eroding a bulwark of affordability.
The lower-income, working-class people along the Jerome Avenue corridor are among the New Yorkers most in need of affordable housing. So why is there so much skepticism about the mayor’s plan to make that neighborhood a focus of his housing plan?
Myth: Rent-controlled tenants get an unbelievable deal. Reality: They can be hit with huge annual rent increases. That’s why advocates want the shrinking number of rent-controlled apartments added to Albany’s looming discussion of rent regulations.
With a new Assembly speaker in place, rent regulations seem likely to be renewed without significant changes, Rent Stabilization Association head Joseph Strasburg said in an interview.
It’s not quite right to say that East New York advocates are opposed to the mayor’s plan to develop the area. It’s not quite right to say that they’re satisfied with what they’ve heard so far, either.
A deal to sell a stake in six buildings to a private developer is already signed and sealed—a major reason it drew sometimes heated questions at a City Council hearing.
On a list of 100 parcels the administration has targeted for affordable housing development, community gardeners say 17 are “active, thriving” open spaces. Updated!
Add another issue to the debate over renewing rent regulations: Current law allows landlords who’ve charged lower than legal rent to suddenly hike the monthly charge to the maximum level, resulting sometimes in triple-digit increases.
Just last week, Mayor de Blasio said the city had in his first year of office financed 17,300 units of affordable housing toward his goal of preserving or building over the next decade some 200,000. But the plan will still be taking shape over the next few months in term sheets with developers, at construction sites and—if Housing Committee Chairman Jumaane Williams has his way—in the City Council hearing room. Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat with a background in tenant advocacy, spoke to City Limits for a City & State TV interview on January 14, the same day he released a statement imploring Albany to “meet this crisis with absolute urgency before our City’s rent regulations expire this spring.”
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The worry isn’t just that rent regulations could expire, Williams said. It’s that if the regulatory system isn’t strengthened, more apartments will be destabilized through vacancy decontrol—which knocks apartments off the rolls once the monthly rent surpasses $2,500—and other leaks. “The mayor’s housing plan is supremely important, so we’re going to do a lot in the housing committee when it comes to that,” Williams said.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
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