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Housing
Internet resources for what you need to know on NYC Housing
Favorite Sites For Beginners

The Topic
Housing refers to all dwellings in NYC - from luxury condos with views of the Park to battered in-rem apartments in the South Bronx - and the laws and policy disputes that they produce.
The Context
The percentage of vacant and available housing stock in NYC has never exceeded 4.01%. This extraordinary housing scarcity makes for the highest rents in the US. Unlike citizens of most big American cities, where slightly over half of units are owner-occupied, more than two-thirds of New Yorkers are renters. And - bucking the national trend again - more than two-thirds of New York apartments are rent-regulated in some way. The housing crunch shows no sign of easing up, as new construction is impeded by the highest building costs in the nation. Of the little new construction that does occur in NYC, the vast majority takes advantage of some government subsidy or exemption. Also to note: the city within a city that is New York's 170,000 units of public housing - by far the largest amount of public housing anywhere in America.
The Reporter
Rebecca Webber is a recent graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

by Rebecca Webber

Deregulation On The Rise

(July '01) It has been a summer of bad news for current occupants and hopeful residents of the city's one million rent-regulated apartments.

First, the Rent Guidelines Board dismayed rent-stabilized tenants by passing rent increases for one and two-year leases that were four and six percent respectively. The rent hikes were one percentage point higher than the three and give percent proposal the board had preliminarily approved.

Then, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the owner of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, two large middle-income housing complexes in Manhattan, announced that newly vacated apartments would be removed from rent-regulation and upgraded to luxury rentals.

These unwelcome changes will speed the march of the city's housing stock beyond the reach of regulatory measures, even though the tight market - with a vacancy rate well below five percent -- still meets the legal definition for a housing emergency.

The number of rent-stabilized apartments in the city has been declining for years, largely due to a 1997 state law that allowed for luxury decontrol. When a stabilized apartment rents for $2,000 or more, it loses its regulated status upon vacancy and the owner can obtain the highest rent possible from new tenants.

Rent-stabilized apartments can reach the $2,000 limit through the yearly increases allowed by the Rent Guidelines Board, or through owners' improvements. In Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the 11,250 apartments currently rent for an average of $1000 per month and about 400 become vacant each year. MetLife announced its intention to spend $30,000 to $40,000 on improvements to these newly vacated apartments in order to obtain rents of between $2,100 and $4,200.

MetLife spokesman Kevin Foley defended the company's new policy in an interview with The New York Times, saying, "We take seriously our obligation to our shareholders to maximize our business."

As more and more corporate owners and individual landlords see deregulation as a boon for the bottom line, the prognosis for rent regulation is grim.

In 1996, the New York City Housing and Vacancy survey found 1,052,000 stabilized rentals. In the same survey three years later, there were 1,046,000, even though that figure included most of the 18,000 apartments that had moved from rent controlled to rent stabilized status during the same time period.

And while some newly built apartments are added to the regulated stock each year because their owners participate in programs that offer tax abatements or other financial incentives, the 2002 Housing and Vacancy Survey will likely reveal the continuing decline in the number of stabilized apartments.

Tenant advocates claim that the loss of regulation will burden many tenants who cannot afford to pay higher rents. But the real estate industry welcomes the gradual shift to a freer market.

"We have historically felt that rent regulation is not a good thing. Price controls don't work," said Marolyn Davenport, senior vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry's trade association. "Ultimately the solution is not controlling rents, it's building more housing for people."

Opponents of rent regulation have long argued that increasing the supply of market rate apartments will drive down prices for everyone. But apartments that become deregulated often immediately skyrocket in rent.

In a story about gentrification taking place in downtown Manhattan, The Village Voice told of a food stamp recipient accepting her landlord's offer of $7,500 to vacate the rent-stabilized apartment for which she paid $400 per month. The replacement tenants now pay $2,300 for the same two-bedroom space.

Other forms of deregulation are frightening tenants who never expected it to happen to them. Residents of Mitchell-Lama housing complexes must worry about their landlords opting out of the middle-income housing program, as they are entitled to do after 20 years.

"There are some buildings in the process of buying out of the program and there seems to be an increasing interest on the part of landlords to buy out," said Bob Woolis, co-chair of the Mitchell-Lama Residents Coalition. "We're very much concerned."

The bulk of deregulation and development occurs in Manhattan because "the economics are stronger," said Davenport. And though tenants whose economics are not so strong have long been vociferous in their displeasure for the current trend toward deregulation, they feel their concerns have largely been ignored by those with the power to do something about it.


Sites For Beginners:


Other Recommendations:

  • The Rent Guidelines Board - Comprehensive apartment-hunting guide for beginners or old hands. Great links to research and data on NYC housing, including the 1996 Housing and Vacancy Survey.
  • City Limits - Investigative reporting about housing and other issues facing New York's low-income communities for 22 years. Archives available to 1996.
  • The Cooperator - Free online magazine for co-op and condo dwellers. Articles on current news affecting co-ops and condos, such as utilities deregulation or indictments of corrupt management companies, change monthly. Includes helpful Q&A sections in which tenant questions are answered by lawyers and accountants, and a reference library of detailed advice on topics such as building finance or selling your unit.
  • NYU Law School Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy - A detailed summary of the NYU Law School Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy's report "Reducing the Cost of New Housing Construction in New York City." Also features links to other research and the Center's programs and events.
  • Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve - HUD and the Urban Institute's new survey of homeless people and the service providers who work with them every day provides an intimate portrait of homelessness across America. Those surveyed revealed that more than 40% of homeless people work at least part time, 39% struggle with mental illness, and about a third of the homeless are now or were once child runaways. Only 8% are panhandlers.
  • Mr. Landlord - The Internet Resource for Landlords and Landladies. This comprehensive site offers a wealth of resources and free advice on do-it-yourself rental property management. Visitors can find help with setting up a webpage for their own rental ads or locating sample rent agreement forms. Its services also include a Q&A interactive discussion among fellow landlords; tax, mortgage and rent calculators; and a free weekly e-newsletter on management techniques.
  • Realty Times - This archive of free articles from the Realty Times, a realtors' professional publication, offers advice on issues of concern to apartment dwellers. Articles cover many legal concerns such as how to rent with roommates and tenants' rights to minor repairs, plus simple ideas on interior dicor or what to do if neighbors are noisy. The main page, http://realtimes.com, contains links on other residential real estate topics of interest to consumers, including mortgages and "The Truth About Condo Living."

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