Removes provisions prohibiting N.Y. city from strengthening rent regulation laws to provide more comprehensive coverage than state laws

9 Co-sponsors

• Joseph P. Addabbo Jr.
• Tony Avella
• Thomas K. Duane
• Ruth Hassell-Thompson
• Kevin S. Parker
• José Peralta
• Bill Perkins
• José M. Serrano
• Toby Ann Stavisky

BILL NUMBER:S443A

Title of bill

An act to amend the local emergency housing rent control act, in relation to rent regulation laws

Purpose

To restore home rule to New York City regarding a critical local issue by returning its power to address legislatively its worsening housing affordability and homeless crisis; to preserve remaining affordable housing by enacting enhanced rent and eviction protections.

Summary of provisions

This act includes provisions repealing the 1971 'Urstadt Law,' which prohibits cities with a population of one million or more from strengthening rent and eviction protections, and the 2003 amendment to it that further curtailed the City's home rule powers.

Justification

Since 1971, when home rule over rent and eviction protections was taken away, New York City's housing situation has gone from chronic shortage to acute crisis. According to the 2005 NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey, the rental vacancy rate is 3.09%; a vacancy rate of less than 5% creates abnormal market conditions. Rent hardship afflicts poor and middle-class households alike, with half of all New Yorkers paying at or over the federal hardship level of 30% of income in rent, and a forth of all households paying more than half their income in rent. Firefighters, nurses, teachers, police officers, nurses, construction workers, seniors, artists and thousands of other" New Yorkers can no longer afford to live in the communities they serve. More and more low income families have become homeless - there are more homeless people in NYC than at any time since the Great Depression.

As families are forced out of their homes, the rents are frequently increased to exorbitant levels, contributing to an even tighter housing market. The NYC Rent Guidelines Board found that at least 12,692 rent stabilized units were deregulated last year alone, more than 8,200 of these due to vacancy decontrol. Unless the regulations governing rent and eviction protections are strengthened, hundreds of thousands of additional affordable units are likely to be lost during the next decade.

While communities across the state face a range of housing difficulties, the housing market in NYC is unlike any other in the state. NYC's local government is in the best position to understand and address the conditions created by this market. Currently, however, because its hands are tied by the Urstadt Law, the local government is powerless to deal with the housing crisis within its borders.

This act restores NYC's home rule in this critical area of local concern, so that it can adopt rational policies to protect more than 2.4 million residents in one million rent controlled and stabilized apartments. This act also removes the impediment to the local

government's ability to protect tens of thousands of families facing the devastating loss of protections under existing Mitchell-Lama and Section B programs.

Fiscal implications

None.

Local fiscal implications

None.

Legislative history

2009-2010: S.749/A.1688 2007-2008: S.1673/A.4069 2005-2006: S.2735/A.4523 2003-2004: S.3123/A.2071 2001-2002: S.4369/A.1307 1997-1998: S.6532-A

Effective date

Immediately, with provisions.