May 9, 2006
Gothamist Visits the Rent Guidelines Board Meeting
The second of five Rent Guidelines Board meetings took place at Cooper Union last night. We walked over to check out the action. The RGB sets the allowable rent increases for the city's one million plus rent-stabilized apartments (that's about half of the rentable apartment inventory in NYC, according to the 2005 Housing and Vacancy Survey.) The increases each year are supposed to be based on the supply of available apartments, the cost of building ownership, and cost of living throughout the city. In reality, the percentage increase each year depends on a fierce political battle between landlord and tenant advocates, who are each represented by members on the board.
If you've never been to an RGB meeting, it's a unique political spectacle. The board members take turns reading speeches-- when we arrived, one of the tenants' advocates was making an impassioned plea to freeze the rent increases. She was interrupted several times with shouts of support from the audience. After she finished, one of the landlords' advocates began to read his statement. He was drowned out every couple of minutes by shouts and organized chanting from the audience. Many members of the audience brought their own banners and signs, and waved them gleefully for the media assembled around the edges of the room. Most of the reporters had that glazed look they tend to get when there isn't much happening and they are watching something they've seen a thousand times before.
If you're interested in the economics of housing, the discussion was interesting. The tenant advocates repeatedly claimed the landlords were extracting an unfair profit and not putting in necessary repairs on the apartments. The landlord advocates claimed that their costs were skyrocketing (particularly the amount they pay for fuel), and that without a large increase, they'd be forced to sell their buildings to speculators who were even less likely to take care of them. While the RGB is nominally responsible for gathering the research data that both sides can agree on, during the hour of speeches that we sat through, the landlords and tenants seemed to be operating from entirely different sets of facts.
After a few hours of back and forth, the board took a preliminary vote and agreed on 3 to 6.5 percent increases for 1-year renewals; and 5 to 8.5% increases for 2-year leases. If the board settles on the middle of the ranges (4.75/6.75%), that would be a lot higher than last year's 2.75 and 5.5% increases. The next meeting is on June 1st, with a final vote on June 27th.
Disclosure: my dad, Steve Dobkin, was one of the Tenants' advocates on the RGB during the Koch administration. He quit in disgust in 1989 when the board passed a particularly large increase.
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Looks like a wild protest. But honestly, I pay 3000 a month for my place, so I cant feel that sorry for them.
R2K
Do you know when the last time was that the cap (currently $2,000) was raised? Seems to me they should raise that cap so that less apartments become destablized when they hit that mark.
you "can't feel that sorry" - these are native new yorkers who have lived here for years and are being priced out of their neighborhoods.
in a decade new york will be inpersonal blocks instead of neighborhoods with no sense of community.
bastard landlords.
Never made the connection that Steve Dobkin was yr dad. Nice guy, and an excellent tenant's attorney.
or, rather, a different sense of community. all change is scary and disruptive...
i think steve is clearly the more famous dobkin.
The thing that really pisses me off if that these upwardly-mobile people come in and pluck up all the properties in an "up and coming" neighborhoods, only to live there for a few years. They use NY as an adult Disneyland for their unmarried days. Then, after getting married then carrying around newborn Junior in a front-mounted pouch, they retreat to a more suburban locale. Total time in NYC: 6 years.
Hell, I'd have a lot more respect for the people who uproot neighborhoods if they'd just LIVE there and actually form a community, for god's sake, because some people actually DO live here and will stay here long after the yupsters have abandoned their communities.
Open the books, you dirty crooks.
Exactly, nyer.
People have been renting in this city for decades.
Get ready for a long Hot summer.
Go ahead, light the fuse.
These people make me sick. If they can't afford to live in the most expensive neigbourhoods in the world, it is better to move out. There is plenty of space in Queens and elsewhere.
The result of this socialist rent-control is higher rents for everybody else.
Perhaps these people should move to North Korea (they still have the great goverment-controlled paradise).
Let's see. Management costs, including fuel and property taxes go up 8%. Renters demand that rents must stay the same.
Can I get free money as well?
How about this: I must get gasoline for $1 since that all I want to pay! I don't care if the real price is over $3. I think Starbucks should also give me coffee for 10 cents. After all, I have been living here for a long time!
Besides, this mean that all those deteriorated buildings remain here as is (makes no sense to do expensive renovations).
"I must get gasoline for $1 since that all I want to pay! I don't care if the real price is over $3."
stupid and self defeating analogy, considering the price of gas is up, not because there is a shortage but in order to support RECORD PROFITS by the oil industry.
NYer, a lot of us do. This year will mark my 12th, and I have no plans of moving to the suburbs (been there, done that!). You do also have to realize that living in proximity of the most vibrant city in the country can have its drawbacks...how can you expect people NOT to want to live here?
Thank you for showing us what an obnoxious lot of freeloaders these people are. Thank goodness they are getting priced out of Manhattan. Hopefully rents will go up in Queens and they can move to Canada.
yodi, is not legal.
he no speak nor write engrish.
Instead of raising rents, how bout you go to your ESL class?
And, take that hidden camera out of that smoke detector.
Unfortunately, high rents are keeping the interesting people (like artists) from being able to come to NYC. Which results in NYC being not only like Disneyland, but a wasteland of rich, GENERIC, bored, socially-inept, soul-less bunch of yuppies. Can I get you anything? Compassion, perspective, perhaps?
The worst that happened in the seventies was Son of Sam.
Now you got the LES murders, nicole defrense et al.
Some unsolved, the banker kid.
I'd say the fuse is already lit and it's gonna explode.
YOU wanna tear down the Projects in LES, Chelsea and Hells' kitchen West? Go try.
So, who's really civilized here?
Looks like a wild protest. But honestly, I pay 3000 a month for my place, so I cant feel that sorry for them.
[1] Posted by: Alex | May 9, 2006 07:54 AM
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I hope you're not overpaying. Where in the Bronx is it? Did it come with a mini-fridge and a hot plate?
margo:
are you attacking yuppies? (rolling my eyes)
ugh
Public housing policy and rent-control have destroyed the middle class in NYC.
Some lucky ones pay ridiculously low rents (or no rent at all) here while the rest pay absurdly high rents.
Get rid of the public housing and rent-controlled ghettos and we'll see realistic rents for middle-class people.
Sour grapes all around. So sorry that you have to pay through the nose to live in NYC. 1 million of us don't. Praise Allah. Don't be bitter.
It's no cakewalk dealing with these cheap landlords. They figure, why should they do anything for stabilized buildings when they can't turn a profit. So good luck getting a simple paint job or a drain unclogged. And they love to take us to court to prove that it's not our primary residence, so that they can throw us out and destabilize the rents. God forbid you have a family emergency and have to go out of state for a while to nurse your family member back to health. See you in Housing Court suckah.
I pay $750 for a 1 bedroom on Park Ave. Thank you rent stabilization. I am an artist. A subway/street musician. A part of the community. You know, the guy who reminds you that there is more to life than living in your ghost world, money driven hell.
People need music and art. If you price out a necessary part of the community fabric then you kill a society. The yuppies or whatever they should be called in "06" will truly bland the fuck outta this place. Then we all might as well move to Weat Orange.
funny how everyone seems to think they have the right to live in nyc and anyone outside their group should leave. people who stay here for 6 years, midwesterners, yuppies, hipsters, poor people, and nola.
welcome to america, NYer. if 'yupsters' want to treat nyc as the 'adult disneyland' that it is, (while bankrolling improvements, stimulating economies and driving down crime) thankfully you can do nothing about it.
"Get rid of the public housing and rent-controlled ghettos and we'll see realistic rents for middle-class people."
no you wont, you'll see no "realistic rents" within manhattan or the nearest parts of queens and brooklyn. it will become a rich only exclusive area while the people who work here will have to commute in from further away. do you know what rent is like in London? thats what New York will become.
I think some people already lit the fuse.
Hence, the Greenpoint fire and many others.
Get your respirators ready.
Just in case bird flu comes around.
Rent will never drop in this City, well when hell freezes over.
no you wont, you'll see no "realistic rents" within manhattan or the nearest parts of queens and brooklyn.
Yes it would. Say, now 60% of New York housing is rent-controlled or public housing. Let's say the average rent here for 1BR is $700.
40% of the housing has free market rates. The average rent here is $2,200 for 1BR.
Without rent-controlled (or public housing) the average rent would certainly be much less than the $2,200.
Average rents would decline by 20-25%. Now everybody (outside rent-controlled housing) has to pay extra 20% because of rent-control. This makes no sense.
nice voodoo economics, but thats just not going to happen.
This is about rent STABILIZED apartments, which are different then rent CONTROLLED apartments
Look, the majority of us stabilized/controlled people just can't afford to pay more & that's that!
This whole argument is NOT cut & dry lke some commenters are presenting: you CAN'T say that "realistic rents" will happen if stabilization or control ends!
If anyone reading this has a family history in New York you will KNOW that average rent costs have always been high unless you lived in shithole/ghetto neighborhood or both.
My mother lied about her rent to my grandmother. She moved to a remote part of the UES in the 60's w/a roommate & said her rent was $130 instead of $180.
We ALL make some sort of sacrifices to live here, rich/poor, artists, yuppies, etc.
We've all got to suck it up & deal...or be gone if we can't. I'm moving in 8 years - I've got a plan, no joke.
But I will say, nice job on your comments, Margo & Horatio.
I'm with you both 100%
i don't get why people think they are entitled to live in manhattan for cheap. sure, i could feel entitled to live in a nice place on CPW. but i can't afford it. so i don't. seems pretty logical to me. living in manhattan is a privilege, not a right. you have to work hard to make it here. whether it's art or banking. perhaps the reasons most artists can't afford manhattan rents is because they are not any good! an artist living on park ave does not make ny any more interesting than an artist living in brooklyn.
Oh, I'm getting verklemped...
What if there was a way to prove in court that artists, restaurant and bar owners (I'll call them all "artists" to simplify) really do increase the value of a neighborhood?
Then the artists would be entitled to that value (since the increased value is the direct result of the artists contributions). Then could the artists sue the landlords who profitted from the same artists who made the neighborhood more valuable? Discuss.
"Perhaps the reasons most artists can't afford manhattan rents is because they are not any good!"
Are you saying that the best movies out are the ones that make the most money? Or that if something is more expensive than it's competitors it's got to be better? Typical blind American consumer mentality.
there is certainly no shortage of bad art.
There seems to be a bigger issue at hand in most of the posts in this discussion. im reffering to this unprovoked hate for people with money (which most people refer to as yuppies). These people worked hard, got an education, and now have a high paying job. Why should they not move into the neighborhods that they want to move into. Just becasue certain people didn't feel like pursuing a higher education and have no money does not give them the right to bitch and moan about people taking over their neighborhood.
Maybe if you went to school, got an education, and a REAL job, maybe you woulden't be in this position.
(This question is not directed at anyone in particular)
Then why the hate towards rent stabilization?
Why are you telling people where to live if you yourself don't want to be told?
Question was not posed to anyone in particular, unless for some reason one felt it did.
Is NYC a more vibrant city because of rent stabilisation and rent control? At the margin, yes. Are market-rate rents higher because of rent stabilisation and rent control? At the margin, yes. But I think it's possible to overstate these effects. I think it's great that tenants have a lot of rights in this city. But there's no doubt that those rights skew the housing market in all manner of ways both calculable and incalculable. So we have a skewy housing market. It's all part of NYC's vibrancy.
Greg W., ask those rich people who paid for their higher education. The answer will be at least 90% of the time THEIR PARENTS, which means they did NOT work for the cost of their education. That's called a "freebie" or a "handout," quite literally. You'd be surprised how things would change if those who had the drive had equal access to the same quality education. Alas, that's a whole other topic, but DON'T go on here saying that one could just drop everything and walk into a university for four years. The real world doesn't work that way, my friend. In order to take four years of your life for study, you won't have much time to work at a real day job, which means your university funding has to be pre-paid from some other source, be it a loan (co-signed on the backs of MOM AND DAD), a scholarship (on the backs of TAXPAYERS or DONORS). Namely, the funding rarely ever comes from YOU. Nice to have others ensure your welfare.
Say it with me: "Welfare"
I don't think there is any unprovoked "hate" going on here. What I see is mutual RESENTMENT btwn, let's see, "artists/yuppies" and "old school NYers/new comers." Again, this is nothing new, like it or not.
For example, older NY ethnic groups were tradionally intolerant of newer ones until everyone just got used to each other & mellowed out over the years. I'm not saying that it's right.
But to those of you who resent rent control/stabilization: I CHOSE to live in my neighborhood way before it was full of trendy boutiques and snooty eateries. It was a charming & quiet residential neighborhood w/families & artists then. My family is from here. Many people could've done what I did and simply gotten a cheaper apartment here before it got so trendy. Now everyone's flocked here because it's "the safest big city in America" and they don't have to sacrifice their suburban luxuries to live in the big city.
I know many "yuppies" that won't venture into now-trendy parts of Bkyln because they still think it's scummy & ghetto-y. Soon when all the proper services are finished setting up, they'll want to move out there for a few years, like the rest of the herds of sheep. But they will then complain that everything is unaffordable & there is no room for them. And so the cycle continues.
If NYC becomes that city w/no middle class in my lifetime, a playground solely for the rich who are served by the poor, I'll leave. And take my artsy self elsewhere with a "thanks for the memories while I had them.."
To all the art "critics" out there: Go out and make a piece of art. Do...something! Instead of complaining about how less fortunate New Yorkers are keeping you from landing your dream apartment (at any price, it seems)go out there and make yourself useful. Hell, paint a picture of your sour puss, even! Because, you know, working at your cush corporate job may be making you rich, but it's hurting the weakest of society in the end. Know this: your money is made on the backs of the less fortunate. But hey, as long as you're comfortable, why bother to have compassion? Compassion is for pussies!
The sense of unearned entitlement a certain class of New Yorkers feels is extremely offensive to the vast majority of people that have to work very hard and sacrifice to be here. The more vocal they are about maintaining there archaic entitlements, the more likely they are to lose them. Even with the TWU pleading at this moment to get the deal they struck over in December, they don't get it. This shriveling class of the entitled is about to protest themselves out of existence.If you have a much better deal than everyone else, it is best to keep you mouth shut about it.
why should some people pay lower rent than others? its not like rent stabilization is linked to income. In any event the unfair system is rent stabilization itself.