In the cramped venue of The Sanz in Allerton on May 30, a feeling of optimism and empowerment infused the room. Passionate residents waved protest signs and chanted refrains of, “Fight, Fight, Fight! Housing Justice is a Right!” as they urged Norwood Assemblywoman, Nathalia Fernandez, and State Sens. Jamaal Bailey and Alessandra Biaggi, to pass all nine proposed bills on universal rent control when the state’s rent stabilization laws expire on June 15. The event was hosted by Bronx Park East Community Association, which also drew Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to offer her take on housing issues.

Housing activists, including Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition, the Met Council, and Neighborhood Initiatives Development Corporation, want to end landlord-friendly loopholes that cause tenant displacement. To illustrate the very real effects of the current housing crisis, four residents provided testimony of their past experiences.

One of these was Natasha Tosca, president of the tenants association at 851 E. 163rd St. She said that since moving into the building, she, and her neighbors, have faced extremely dangerous conditions, the most extreme of which was on July, 3, 2017 when a fire from a faulty electrical system spread to two apartments, leaving 12 people injured, and nearly killing a 99-year-old woman.

Tosca said that for one of the tenants, rent has more than doubled since 2013, increasing from $577 to $1,400. Tosca is also experiencing a similar rent issue.

“Despite years of horrendous conditions, our landlord, Hiram Colon, decided to steal money from the tenants through illegal rent increases. I currently have a DHCR rent overcharge of $63,000,” said Tosca, drawing gasps from the audience. “[A]nd other tenants have overcharges, but because of the weak rent laws which landlords have imposed, they have missed the four-year threshold they have to catch the overcharge which leaves them with no other option but to continue to pay an illegal rent.”

Activists say if all nine bills are passed, it will address major housing issues faced by tenants like Tosca, such as the elimination of Major Capital Improvements, the highly contested rent increases for building-wide improvements for rent-regulated apartments. It would also keep preferential rents permanent and create eviction protections for tenants in smaller and newer buildings that don’t have rent regulation.

Fernandez said she, like Bailey and Biaggi, co-sponsored each of the nine bills on universal rent control. “Families are being displaced, homelessness is up the roof and lives are being ruined,” she said, adding that housing displacement has other consequences like potentially forcing kids to change schools, causing parents to incur a longer work commute, as well as the strain on mental health.

Biaggi echoed her colleague’s sentiments saying that housing was the number one issue affecting her constituents. “We have an incredible opportunity to put, for the first time, in a very, very, very long time, New York tenants first over the developers,” she said, confirming that she had participated in a number of working groups all across the state to negotiate the bill proposals and noting that concerns with the bills were not the same across all geographic regions.

For his part, Bailey spoke of the importance of reading and understanding all legislation prior to making decisions. “You can say to me this is the best bill in the world. If I don’t read it, I am not doing my job as your legislator,” he said. “After I read the bills, what did I do? I signed on.”

Bailey also gave credit to those who he referred to as the good landlords. “I am a renter myself and I have an excellent landlord,” but he warned those landlords who are not responsive, “We are coming for you.”

Meanwhile,  Ocasio-Cortez assured guests of what it means to legislate for housing as a human right. “What it means is that our access and our ability and our guarantee to having a home comes before someone else’s privilege to make a profit.”

Expiring Laws 
New York State’s rent laws will expire on June 15, and with the State Legislature under Democratic control for the first time since 2010, tenant advocates see a chance to reform what they describe as a litany of legal loopholes allowing repeal the 20 percent rent increase on vacant apartments established in 1997. The following rent reform package, drafted by both the state Assembly and Senate, is currently being drafted and expected to be hammered out before the rent laws expire.

“There’s a housing crisis impacting the entire city,” says Ava Farkas, executive director of The Met Council, a housing advocacy group.

The Norwood News compiled a list of nine bills that legislators from the state’s 62 counties are negotiating. The bills, if passed, will have tremendous influence in the Bronx, considered the last bastion of affordability that’s currently being challenged. The Democratically controlled Assembly and Senate houses are ready to pass rent reform, albeit with some reservations.

BREAKING: The Public Advocate has been arrested outside @NYGovCuomo’s office during a #HousingJustice4All protest with a coalition of activists.

Additional updates to follow #RentReforms #AlbanyActNow #UniversalRentControl #IfWeDontGetIt #ShutItDown pic.twitter.com/TaDBTztzbd

— Jumaane Williams (@JumaaneWilliams) June 4, 2019

The following bills aimed at assisting Bronx residents include:

“Preferential Rent” Reform
Preferential rent, which offers landlords to charge tenants a lower rate than the actual legal rent, which is often higher than the preferential rent. Preferential rent becomes problematic for renters during lease renewal, when a landlord can increase the legal rent unilaterally. when landlords raise the rent to the full amount of the legal rent at any time, which can be an increase of hundreds of dollars. Housing advocate Sally Dunford of West Bronx Housing says landlords often take advantage of this possibility in a bid to get tenants out, particularly in Bedford Park.

“Vacancy Decontrol” Reform
The bill would repeal vacancy decontrol and re-regulates deregulated apartments that rent for less than $5,000 a month in New York City and $3,500 in the suburbs.

“Vacancy Bonus” Reform
Currently landlords may raise the rent 20 percent after a tenant departs and charge the new tenant the higher rent, even if rent stabilization is in effect. In an op-ed in the Daily News, Mayor Bill de Blasio said this law incentivizes “churn,” or forcing out tenant after tenant in order to keep raising rents. The proposal by State Sen. Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal would eliminate vacancy bonuses as a way of slowing down the removal of an apartment from the rent-regulated market portfolio.

Expanding the Tenant Protection Act
Democratic lawmakers look to geographically extend the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 beyond New York City and Westchester, Nassau, and Rockland counties, to places like Rochester, Syracuse, or Suffolk County, where the option of creating rent-regulated stock of apartments does not exist. The bill by state Sen. Neil Breslin and Assemblyman Kevin Cahill would extend the rent-regulated policy to these other continues.

MCI Removal
One of the more talked-about rent reform bills is the elimination of Major Capital Improvements, where landlords pass building and apartment renovations onto tenants even after the cost of a project has been completed. Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he is in favor of reforming the policy, but not completely removing it. State Sen. Michael Gianaris and Assemblyman Brian Barnwell are the lead sponsors of this bill.

Good Cause Eviction
The bill would only allow landlords to evict tenants if they show “good cause” in limited circumstances. It would also put a cap on non-regulated apartments. State Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn is the lead sponsor of the bill. Much of the controversy stems from the bill causing landlords to think twice about building units.

Four-Year Rule
The bill by Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz would lift the four-year statute of limitations residents have to question their rent history, which can often show tenants paying a lot more in rent than landlords are entitled to. Often tenants can find they have been over-paying their rent too late.

Ending Harassment
End the practice of landlords inching towards having a rent-regulated apartment de-regulated after making cosmetic repairs to an apartment.

Rent Control Relief
Aligns rent control increases, which stand at 7.5 percent, with rent stabilization increases that are determined by the Rent Guidelines Board.

Opposition to Bills
Just as tenants are fighting to reform the state’s rent laws, landlords and its advocates are not staying silent over the reforms.

In the last few months, websites have been established pointing out some figures related to the rent stabilization market. Taxpayers for an Affordable New York set up a website called Responsible Rent Reform paid for by the Real Estate Board of New York and other pro-landlord groups, outlining some of those facts. They write that since the 1990s, the cost of fixing buildings is much higher than the incremental rent increases imposed by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board allow, citing data from the Real Estate Board of New York and HR&A Advisors. They also point out that rents associated with rent-stabilized units have increased since they reside in buildings that are much older, leaving landlords no choice but to impose an MCI that triggers more money tenants have to shell out in rent.

They also have pointed out that unlike the thinking that rent stabilized units are shrinking, there was an increase in the number of rent stabilized units by 4,387. They also caution that, should these aggressive rent reforms are enacted, it could be a mean a $2 billion loss in property tax revenue annually.

Editor’s Note: The published version of this article incorrectly states Natasha Tosca owes her landlord $63,000 in rent. 

admin

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.