Rent Guidelines Board Passes Preliminary Vote for Rent Increases

By Hamodia Staff

On Tuesday evening May 2, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board passed a preliminary first vote to raise rent-stabilized apartment one-year leases by 2-5% and by 4-7% for two-year leases. A final vote scheduled for June 21.

Landlords and tenants faced off in their advocacy to influence the vote, and tenants and organizers jumped onto the stage at one point to protest.

New York City Councilmember Sandy Nurse joined the protest, claiming her landlord is trying to push her rent-stabilized apartment to market value.

Both sides are suffering the effects of inflation, and are still feeling the after-effects of the COVID epidemic. Some landlords have not received full rent, and some tenants have not working.

Board members representing both tenants and landlords voted against the proposed increases. The landlord representatives felt it was too low, saying they need the increase to deal with the rising cost of building repairs, property taxes, and energy bills.

Tenant representatives felt it was too high. There are more than a million rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments in the city, with the average household income for rent-stabilized tenants at $44,000, making any kind of rent hike difficult. The average rent for a New York City studio apartment is $3,400.

The estimated rise in costs for landlords is approximately 15.75%. The nine-member board, appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, considers a number of factors; not just the costs of the landlords, but also situation of the tenants.

“No recommended or adopted increase has ever come close to this number, and this year will be no different,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.

Last year, the board ultimately voted to raise rents on one-year leases by 3.25% and on two-year leases by 5%. That was the highest increase for rent-stabilized apartments in almost a decade. During Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure, the Rent Guidelines Board supported a rent freeze for three of his eight years.