Housing and Homelessness
NYC Housing Calendar, Nov. 9-16
Mariam Hydara |
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
The owners of three buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are accused in the suit of falsely registering initial rents with the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) in order to charge tenants more money than legally permitted at renewal or on new leases.
“Many homeless New Yorkers are working and could afford rent stabilized rents—yet landlords have been warehousing rent stabilized apartments.”
Just six units remain occupied at the Arlington Village complex. Now, those who remain worry about what the owners’ plan to develop the site will mean for them. “What exists now won’t exist.”
The nine-member Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) voted Tuesday to raise rents by 3.25 percent on one-year leases and by 5 percent on two-year leases, the highest increase for rent-stabilized apartments since 2013.
The number of available apartments for low- and middle- income New Yorkers reached a 30-year low in 2021, according to the results of a vacancy survey used to determine whether rent stabilization laws will remain in place in the five boroughs.
The rate increases are lower than property owners have pushed for, citing rising costs. But tenants and housing advocates who’ve called for a rent freeze say the hike will worsen the city’s eviction crisis.
Attorney Christina Smyth will serve as one of the board’s two landlord representatives, while New York University Stern business school professor Arpit Gupta, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, will serve as one of five public members.
“Although HPD and DOB are responding quickly to 311 complaints and sending out inspectors, there is a very troubling lag time and delay in terms of closure of these complaints,” Councilmember Pierina Sanchez said.
Tenants say they fear the property owners are waging a war of attrition, waiting the renters out until they give up, move on and forfeit the rent-regulated apartments.