New York Rent Laws
CRRL Table of Contents

The City Rent and Rehabilitation Law [CRRL]

§ 26-401. Declaration and findings.

a.   The council hereby finds that a serious public emergency
     continues to exist in the housing of a considerable number
     of persons in the city, which emergency was created by war,
     the effects of war and the aftermath of hostilities; that
     such emergency necessitated the intervention of federal,
     state and local government in order to prevent speculative,
     unwarranted and abnormal increases in rents; that there
     continues to exist an acute shortage of dwellings; that
     unless residential rents and evictions continue to be
     regulated and controlled, disruptive practices and abnormal
     conditions will produce serious threats to the public
     health, safety and general welfare; that to prevent such
     perils to health, safety and welfare, preventive action
     through enactment of local legislation by the council
     continues to be imperative; that such action, as a temporary
     measure to be effective until it is determined by the
     council that such emergency no longer exists, is necessary
     in order to prevent exactions of unjust, unreasonable and
     oppressive rents and rental agreements and to forestall
     profiteering, speculation and other disruptive practices
     tending to produce threats to the public health that the
     transition from regulation to a normal market of free
     bargaining between landlord and tenant, while still the
     objective of state and city policy, must be administered
     with due regard for such emergency; that in order to prevent
     uncertainty, hardship and dislocation, the provisions of
     this chapter are declared to be necessary and designed to
     protect the public health, safety and general welfare.

b.   The council further declares that it is city policy to
     utilize the powers conferred by this chapter, in a manner
     consistent with the purposes and provisions thereof, to
     encourage and promote the improvement and rehabilitation of
     the housing accommodations subject to control hereunder, for
     the purpose of protecting the public health, safety and
     general welfare.

Added by Laws 1985, Ch. 907, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1986.