A Rally for Rental Reform Tonight on PPW

The rent is just too damn high – or at least it may be soon for the city's  approximately one million rent regulated apartments.

Councilmember Brad Lander and the Real Rent Reform Campaign, a tenant advocacy group, will tonight rally outside a Park Slope meeting of the Rent Stabilization Association, in an effort to voice support for rent regulation extension.

“This spring, the laws that regulate how much landlords can raise rents for more than one million apartments citywide are set to expire, putting at risk NYC's most important stock of stable, affordable rental housing for low-income, working-class, and middle-class families,” Lander wrote in a letter to the community.

New York State’s rent regulations are set to sunset in June. Some version of the rental laws have been in effect for decades, but require periodic renewal – which often turns into a major legislative battle.

“Last time the laws were renewed, the real estate lobby won a wide array of loopholes (with innocuous-sounding names like "vacancy decontrol"), which have led to tens of thousands of evictions, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of units of affordable rental housing. So this year, Albany must not only renew the laws ... it must strengthen them,” Lander wrote.

The Rent Stabilization Association, a trade association of property owners and agents, is one of the major groups fighting against strengthened rent regulations. Tonight’s meeting, at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture on Prospect Park West, is one of the group’s regular monthly meetings, where RSA members can come to ask questions about and discuss issues within the real estate trade.

Frank Ricci, the Director of Government Affairs for the RSA, said that the organization does believe current rent regulation laws are working, and do not need to be strengthened. Under the current law, landlords can convert vacant regulated apartments to market rate once the rent reaches $2,000 a month.

“The reality is that many apartments go over $2000 on vacancy increases, but landlords keep rent lower because the market rate is lower anyways.”

Lander and the Real Rent Reform Campaign will rally outside of the tonight from 5:30 to 7 p.m.