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Rent Guidelines Board is Last Hope for Rent-Stabilized Buildings and Their Tenants


Housing on the agenda (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office)


New York City needs a lot more affordable housing, but we also must take care of our existing housing stock. Rent-stabilized buildings provide affordable housing for more than 1 million residents in the city, but those buildings are facing dire circumstances.

For many of these buildings, especially older buildings outside of the Manhattan core, they rely on a single source of income to operate: rent. Those rents are set by the Rent Guidelines Board.

So when the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) sets adjustments well below increases in operating costs, as it has in many recent years, it is defunding the buildings. Defunded buildings have to defer maintenance and can’t make necessary upgrades. Housing providers typically have to cut back on staffing, so response times to renters’ complaints increase. Over the past few years, violations for rent-stabilized buildings have increased, which is a completely predictable outcome. Tenants’ quality of life is severely diminished when the RGB does not allow reasonable rent adjustments.

Housing providers rely on the RGB to ensure they can cover operating costs, debt service and capital improvements. But they have been disappointed for more than a decade when the RGB has continuously undercut their ability to keep buildings solvent and in good shape for their tenants. And especially since the passage of the 2019 adjustment to state rent laws, known as HSTPA, which eliminated other available tools that allowed for building improvements. 

In this scenario, everyone loses.

This year, the RGB’s data suggested rent-stabilized buildings need an 8.25% increase on a one-year lease and a 16% increase on a two-year lease in order to keep up with rising costs after accounting for inflation. What this really means is that these buildings need rents to increase that much in order to prevent the future deterioration of apartment buildings.

A Special Memo from the RGB details the systemic defunding of rent-stabilized buildings. Net Operating Income (NOI – the amount left over after costs, primarily used for debt service and capital expenditures) declined for highly stabilized buildings (80% or more of units rent stabilized) outside of core Manhattan by 2.5% in 2020 and 3.9% in 2021. 

Despite knowing this, the RGB voted on a preliminary range for rent adjustments of 2% to 5% for one-year leases and 4% to 7% for two-year leases. This is well below the rate of inflation (6.2%), much less the operating costs of these buildings. This also leaves no money for responsible debt service and any capital improvements.

These troublesome trends will continue as the RGB continues to set rent adjustments lower than operating costs and inflation, which will ultimately lead to the deterioration of the largest source of affordable housing in New York City, which took decades to restore after the harmful impacts of poor housing policies in the 1970s and 1980s. These are the same policies that have returned under the HSTPA.

There has been an outcry about the potential sharp increase in rents, and we understand that there is an affordability crisis in the city. The answer to this is not to continue to defund buildings during a housing crisis and further diminish a severely needed resource.

If the government wants to help renters, policy-makers need to help reduce operating costs for property owners, not continue to raise their property taxes. They also need to help support renters struggling to pay rent, which is why the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) supports measures like the Housing Voucher Access Program (HVAP). 

Unfortunately, elected officials have failed to do anything to create more affordable housing or preserve the existing affordable rent-stabilized housing stock. Like previous years, they have done nothing and are now focusing all of their efforts into pressuring the Rent Guidelines Board to cover up for their lack of progress. Instead, elected officials should take a look at why insurance rates are so high, pass a statewide insurance program for affordable housing, and fix the broken property tax system, among other measures like HVAP. All of these efforts would help tenants stay in their affordable, well-maintained homes.

The RGB should stop bailing out do-nothing elected officials. The way they do that is to follow the data and stop defunding the very buildings they are tasked with preserving. Hopefully, that will send a message to elected officials that they need to take more responsibility to solve this problem instead of always blaming someone else.  

New York City needs affordable housing. So let’s stop destroying what we already have.

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Jay Martin is the Executive Director of the Community Housing Improvement Program. On Twitter @JayMartin222 & @NYC_CHIP.

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The Annual Rent Guidelines Board Charade: Tenants are About to be Screwed, Again


(photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)


Here we go again. On Wednesday, June 21 the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) will vote on how much landlords can raise rents on people living in rent-stabilized apartments. In its second year of operation under a new pro-landlord mayor, all indications point to another round of unjust rent hikes on our already overburdened tenants — like last year’s 3.25% and 5% for one- and two-year leases.

The sham scenario has already been set up by a public complaint from Mayor Eric Adams that a 7% increase (the upper range of the preliminary proposals adopted by the RGB on May 2) would be “too high,” so tenants are expected to breathe a sigh of relief when the final numbers land in the 3% to 5% range.

Media reports will focus on the theatre, with tenants chanting and holding up protest signs. As they do every year, TV reporters will interview one tenant who will explain they can’t afford another rent increase and one landlord who will explain they are going broke because of rent stabilization.

With rare exceptions the coverage will be superficial — few reporters are familiar with the subject matter, in part because few editors think it is important enough to assign a deep-dive before the vote. This is a shame, as the reports published by the RGB staff are extensive and rich in data that show what’s really happening: landlords are doing quite well and tenants are being hammered by inflation, and less able to survive the rising cost of living than their landlords.

RGB staff research for 2023 shows that:

  1. Since 1990 landlords of rent-stabilized apartments have seen their Net Operating Incomes (NOI) increase by 49.9%, after adjusting for inflation. In the 33 years since the RGB began calculating NOI, it has hovered around 40%, meaning that the average landlord spends 60 cents of every dollar of income on all costs of running their buildings, leaving 40 cents for debt service and profit. An astonishing net compared to other industries; and a profitability that belies landlords’ annual cries of near poverty.
  2. Instead of looking at NOI over time—it goes up a bit in some years, down in others—the RGB members are justifying another round of unaffordable rent hikes based on the slight decline in NOI from 2020 to 2021, which was of course the height of the pandemic when people were giving up their apartments and leaving the city.
  3. No doubt next year’s Income and Expense Study, which will look at I&E changes from 2021 to 2022, will show that landlords have fully recovered from this temporary covid dip. There is nothing in the law that describes the Board’s job as keeping landlords’ net incomes steady. In fact, according to the Rent Stabilization Law that created the RGB, its statutory charge is to “prevent speculative, unwarranted and abnormal increases in rents” and “forestall profiteering, speculation and other disruptive practices tending to produce threats to the public health, safety and general welfare."
  4. The 2023 RGB Mortgage Survey Report demolishes the landlord argument that the 2019 changes to the rent laws, when Albany closed multiple loopholes, have made their buildings less valuable. The opposite has occurred: sales of rent-stabilized properties rose by 14% over last year, and the average sales price went up; it’s now higher than it was in 2016.
  5. An astronomical 39.5% of rent-stabilized households now pay more than 30% of household income on rent, and more than one-third are paying more than half their income. Between 1991 and 2021 median contract rents for stabilized apartments have risen from 28 to 36.2% of household income. Thousands of stabilized tenants have descended into a state of economic chaos, in large part because of actions of this Board.

But these facts are missing from almost all of the daily newspaper reporting and nightly local TV news. Too often in this process, year after year, we simply get short on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand narratives.

The mayor appoints all nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board, and unfortunately the mayor does not have to submit his choices to the City Council for vetting and confirmation. The RGB has two tenant representatives, two landlord reps, and five so-called public members including the chair.

This 5-2-2 composition was designed to limit the influence of tenants on decisions of the Board. The annual charade goes like this: the two tenant members vote no because the proposed rent adjustments are too high, the two landlords vote no because they are too low, whereupon the five public members come in somewhere in the middle with “a reasonable compromise,” and the rent hikes are approved 5-4.

In most years, the vote plays out this way, but occasionally the scheme breaks down. Last year one of the public members rebelled and voted against the 3.25% and 5% hikes for one- and two-year leases, forcing the chair to go to one of the landlord members for the fifth vote. All too predictably, Mayor Adams has replaced that public member with a new one who is certain to play by the rules. The fact that a landlord member had to furnish the fifth vote proves what savvy observers already knew: this entire process is rigged in favor of the property-owning class.

Under pro-landlord mayors such as Adams, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, and especially Mike Bloomberg, we have had large rent increases. With pro-tenant mayors like David Dinkins and Bill de Blasio, rent hikes were much more moderate. In four of his eight years as mayor, de Blasio’s board enacted a partial rent freeze, for one-year leases.

Except for Dinkins, all mayors have interfered in the RGB process, while claiming that they maintain a strict hands-off posture. Like his predecessors, Adams claims that he only appoints the Rent Guidelines Board members, that they operate without interference from City Hall. But overt instructions are not even necessary: the public members understand what City Hall expects of them. Three of de Blasio’s public members, who had happily gone along with his rent freezes, followed the change of regime and Adams’ pro-landlord approach by voting for last year’s punishing increases. Before his four-year term is up, Adams will be able to replace all nine RGB members.

Landlords are doing quite well and don’t need another rent hike, whereas most tenants are struggling to make ends meet. Regardless of any short-term trends, a full rent freeze is both warranted and essential to stabilizing neighborhoods and keeping families in their homes. The data even justify a negative rent adjustment, to compensate for past rent hike excesses.

Under this system, designed by the real estate industry itself (the 1969 Rent Stabilization Law was drafted by a committee of three major real estate players and three members of then-Mayor John Lindsay’s administration), the data do not ultimately matter. What matters is who gets appointed to this Board as a public member. Steel yourself for another round of rent hikes.

It is high time that organized tenants and pro-tenant elected officials at every level of government advocate for structural reform of this unfair system.

One vital change would be to transfer the responsibility for choosing RGB members to the City Council, which would conform the law to the system outside the city where local legislative bodies choose the rent board members, with no involvement by the executive. At a minimum, the mayor should be required to submit his appointments to the City Council for a public hearing and vote.

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Michael McKee is treasurer of the Tenants Political Action Committee. He has been involved in the Rent Guidelines Board process since the 1970s. On Twitter @McKeeTenantsPAC & @TenantsPACNY.

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New York City Must Prepare Against Future Air Quality Threats; Here’s How


Smoke over New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


As all of us are learning quickly, the world is a small place when it comes to the devastating effects of climate change. The eerie, post-apocalyptic orange smoke that engulfed New York City as a result of wildfires raging in Canada last week is the latest sign we need to be better prepared for the climate crisis already underway. 

Globally we are seeing longer and longer wildfire seasons — a result of rising temperatures and decreased precipitation. With climate change, wildfire frequencies are projected to continue rising, suggesting that New York City is likely to experience similar air quality events in greater numbers in future years. 

This could have critical public health impacts. The city’s public hospital system saw an uptick in patients with respiratory symptoms in some of its emergency departments last week, with lower-income Black and Hispanic communities experiencing a disproportionate share of asthma-related emergencies

Short-term exposure to wildfire smoke pollutants like particulate matter can cause immediate issues including premature death, bronchitis, asthma attacks, and other heart or breathing issues. Long-term exposure can result in reduced lung function and premature death, particularly in people with pre-existing conditions. Seniors, children, and residents of environmental justice neighborhoods that are historically underserved are also particularly at risk.

While last week’s smoke-filled skies seemed to catch our city off guard, we can and must be prepared to take swift action in the face of air quality threats to safeguard the health and welfare of all New Yorkers — especially our most vulnerable residents. Cities and regions across the world have been dealing with poor air quality for years now, and New York City can learn from their lessons to prevent additional air pollution, reduce New Yorkers’ exposure to harmful air pollutants, and advance outreach, education, and preparedness.

To begin with, during poor air quality days like the ones we just experienced, New York City should limit the emissions of additional air pollution from sources within the city. This could include reducing vehicular traffic, which generates over a tenth of the fine particulate pollution in the air in New York City every year. Mexico City and Delhi have taken similar measures, reducing the number of cars traversing their roads during bad air days through license plate and vehicle restrictions. To both help minimize additional air pollution sources and protect outdoor workers, the city could also pause construction of non-critical public projects, as Delhi does, or garbage collection, as Philadelphia did last week.  

Second, the city should proactively take measures to reduce New Yorkers’ exposure to harmful air pollutants. This includes handing out appropriate masks, a strategy the city now has years of experience effectively doing, along with distributing guidance on appropriate mask use. The city should also establish Clean Air Centers in public facilities with effective air filtration systems – similar to its existing cooling centers that provide temperature relief on sweltering days – to provide New Yorkers with safe havens during periods of poor air quality. Across the west coast, cities like San Francisco and Seattle have rolled out these centers to protect residents during wildfire season.

To further reduce exposure, City Hall should make sure our most vulnerable residents are taken care of by removing barriers to shelter and conducting direct outreach to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, as it does during extreme heat and freezing cold events. Offering remote work options to eligible public employees and remote school options to students are simple but crucial steps the city could take to limit exposure to outdoor pollution and set an example for private businesses.

One final essential element to a robust air quality strategy is providing clear and up-to-date communications to all residents on the best practices to adopt during poor air quality days and how to be prepared. Although the city released an advisory alert in advance of the poor air quality, only New Yorkers who had signed up for city communications like NotifyNYC were notified. In future events, the city should be more proactive in utilizing tools like LinkNYC announcements sooner or sending out wireless emergency alert messages to New York City-area mobile devices – similar to AMBER alerts – with guidance on seeking shelter and protecting themselves. 

This also includes ensuring the preparedness of outdoor employers and workers through comprehensive safety guidelines and specific measures and protocols to be followed during poor air quality events. Improving the public’s preparedness for these events by incorporating air quality into the city’s existing emergency management training programs and disseminating up-to-date guidance to leaders in community groups and faith-based organizations could further bolster the city's response to poor air quality events.

It is time for New York City to establish new policies to protect New Yorkers from poor air quality. With a warming climate and increasing climate threats — we must act now to prepare our city and all New Yorkers.

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Grace Rauh is the Executive Director of the 5BORO Institute, a nonpartisan public policy think tank advancing creative solutions to NYC’s most challenging problems. Read 5BORO’s air quality recommendations for NYC government here. On Twitter @GraceRauh & @5BoroInstitute.

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Note: this column has been updated to clarify that while LinkNYC kiosks did post notices about the air quality warning the city administration should look to utilize them sooner in the future.



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