It's starting already

[MikeW]

April 16, 2002
Assembly Revisits Rent Laws One Year Ahead of Schedule
By SHAILA K. DEWAN

[A] LBANY, April 15 ? In December 1996, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, threatened to do away with rent regulation, dragging Republican lawmakers and Gov. George E. Pataki into the path of a merciless political backlash. Six months later, lawmakers agreed to preserve the rent laws until 2003, by which time the current governor's race would be safely over.

But today, Democrats attempted to place rent regulation on the table a year early.

Reminding his listeners of the 1997 rent wars, Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, proposed legislation to end landlords' ability to deregulate apartments that reach $2,000 in monthly rent and extend rent regulation laws to 2008. About 800,000 rent-stabilized apartments have been converted to market-rate apartments, and conversion is accelerating, he said. The Assembly passed the legislation later in the afternoon.

It was political bait: an issue of paramount concern to city dwellers, backed by tenants groups and labor leaders like Dennis Rivera of 1199/S.E.I.U., who has endorsed Governor Pataki and is credited with the ability to pull the governor to the left.

But the Republican-led Senate is not likely to bite. "With the budget late and critical issues such as school aid and economic development yet to be resolved, it's unfortunate that the speaker appears more concerned with a deadline that is over a year away than the budget deadline that passed more than two weeks ago," Mr. Bruno said in a written statement released after Mr. Silver's news conference.

Joseph Conway, a spokesman for Mr. Pataki, said the governor's office was studying the issue. Both of the Democratic candidates for governor, State Comptroller H. Carl McCall and Andrew M. Cuomo, the former United States housing secretary, support the Democratic measure.

In New York City 1.1 million apartments, or about 50 percent of the city's rental units, are regulated. Westchester, Nassau and Rockland Counties have between 70,000 and 80,000 rent-regulated units, said Michael McKee, associate director of New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition, an advocacy group.

In 1997, the opportunity arose to phase out the rent regulation laws, which landlord groups say artificially suppress the housing market and discourage proper maintenance.

But Senator Bruno's declaration that he would end regulation triggered a fierce response. With Democratic print and television advertisements, and the use of Mr. Rivera's prodigious phone bank, the issue became a symbol of the governor's perceived insensitivity to city residents' needs. His poll ratings began to drop. And he forced the Senate to back down. Advocacy groups now hope he will do the same again.

But some housing advocates say that what appeared to be a victory for tenants was a boon for landlords, because the $2,000 rule, known as high-rent decontrol, was not struck down. Landlords also could increase rents by at least 20 percent each time an apartment became vacant. In addition, the law was changed so that tenants contesting their rent could go back only four years.

"Landlords in the city are clearly taking advantage of these provisions, and they are hiking rental rates to a level that working families cannot afford," Mr. Silver said.

The Assembly measure would not repeal a provision that deregulates apartments if the rent reaches $2,000 and the occupants make more than $175,000 a year.

The Rent Stabilization Association, a landlords group, has protested extending the law without a hearing or a study of its impact. The group also argues that the $2,000 provision de-regulates only expensive apartments and does not affect the low- and middle-income tenants whom rent regulations are intended to protect. Rents on market-rate apartments have gone down in response to the recent market slide, said Frank Ricci, the association's director of government affairs.

But supporters of rent stabilization like Mr. McKee argue that only the most expensive apartments respond to market fluctuations. And, Mr. McKee said, rent-stabilized apartments are still profitable.

According to the City Rent Guidelines Board, the percentage of income that landlords spent on operating costs has declined over the past 10 years. In figures for 1999, the most recent available, landlords spent about 60 percent of rent from stabilized apartments on operating costs.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

[lappert]

Problem is that it was Silver who put vacancy deregulation in place in 1997 and he's now designed it in two bills so the Senate might pass the first bill, but not the second bill repealing vacancy deregulation. In short, it's a set-up where he will claim he tried. And there's not a lot of political attention on this.

[MikeW]

I agree, the Senate isn't going to even look at this till next year. This is just too good a bargaining chip for them. Also, next year Pataki isn't going to be under so much heat after he gets reelected. He may just let the whole thing die.