It's obvious that the vast majority of posters are confusing rent stabilization with other programs or just don't know what it means. "Rent stabilization" places restrictions on the amount landlords can increase an existing tenants rent from year to year. It prevents them from making outrageous rent increases of 50% or 100%.

I don't think anyone's confusing it. We've all bemoaned governmental regulation in a private marketplace.

What you call outrageous could very well be the fair market value. Even if the increase isn't what the current marketplace would indicate, who cares? It's not the renter's place. That's why it's called renting.

Private property should be just that. When government creeps in, you get more and more regulation.

Why do the rent stabilized and rent control buildings in my neighborhood look like shit on the outside (and probably on the inside) while every other building is kept in nice order?

Hmm...

Governmental intervention in the form of RS and RC. There's no incentive for the owners to keep the place as nice when the demand is always going to stay high because of an artificial price ceiling.

This all leads to lower property values and thus lower revenues for the schools.

Ah, the beauty of a bureaucracy!

It's completely anti-free market.

What a scumbag.

I have a remix of clips from his press conference on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvGBqylObUM

First of all, it's Rezko, and second of all, you're a fucking moron.

The guy is another politician working the system like so many before him. Like the questionable Obama-Resco deal the leftists will make excuses for the Democrat(s) and generally sweep the issues under the carpet.

Perfect example why this Democratic-lead Congress' approval rating is a record breaking 9%!

The minute fugothamist leaves 7 people will take

his/her/it's place............adios.

that $2k limit is a joke.

how cases of Pb can I buy with that?

God Bless you Congressman Rangel.

rangle is consciously breaking the law. the combined apartments are being rented on individual leases - by doing so he skirts the $2000 limit and so there is no income check. this is conscious and it also means it is a kickback from the owner for something. he definitely needs to be investigated, it would seem a lot of dirt would turn up.

Oh, for God's sake, leave him alone. He was living on 135th St when none of you white people would go within 40 blocks of that street. What a bunch of self-righteous phonies.

Yeah, that makes it fine. Ass.

It's obvious that the vast majority of posters are confusing rent stabilization with other programs or just don't know what it means. "Rent stabilization" places restrictions on the amount landlords can increase an existing tenants rent from year to year. It prevents them from making outrageous rent increases of 50% or 100%.

Rangel pays less than market rent because he's lived in the same apartment for many years. When he moved in, the market rate was lower. If he moved out, new tenants would *not* be charged the same rent he pays. They'd pay market rate.

Lay offa Chollie! He's one of us that rose to the top! To a deeluxe apartment in the sky!!!

Movin on up!

"Rangel went on to say that he had no idea people were evicted from their rent-stabilized apartments in order for market-rate conversions."

Rangel would have to live in China not to know that..... that's just stupid.

But by living in a rent-stabilized apartment, Rangel isn't depriving taxpayers and the greater public of anything. The landlord just can't collect the full market-value rent, which really makes no difference to the rest of us.

Huh?

Everyone who lives in New Orleans cost the taxpayers how many billions? They lived with free, government flood insurance, essentially.

This made everyone poorer, from those in Maine to Florida to Washington. We all subsidize their artificially low housing prices. It should cost a lot more from flood insurance and property values to live below sea level on the coast. But it's not because we basically subsidize it.

Same idea here.

Oh, for God's sake, leave him alone. He was living on 135th St when none of you white people would go within 40 blocks of that street. What a bunch of self-righteous phonies.

The landlord just can't collect the full market-value rent, which really makes no difference to the rest of us. And you're wrong: it's not a moral issue, it's a legal one.

The general belief is that those who are not in rent-controlled or rent-stablized apartments indirectly subsidize those in rent-controlled/stabilized units.

I don't know if Rangel has a sweetheart deal with the building owner... if so, that's really outside of the rent-control debate.

legal or not, it just reflects how stupid the rent control system is, and how it is exploited by people who don't need it.

he's merely preventing the gentrification of harlem

OK Virgil, I agree with you that the right thing to do with a Social Security check that you don't need is to refuse it.

But by living in a rent-stabilized apartment, Rangel isn't depriving taxpayers and the greater public of anything. The landlord just can't collect the full market-value rent, which really makes no difference to the rest of us.

And you're wrong: it's not a moral issue, it's a legal one.

He's not only focusing just on the legal aspect of it, but also seems to spend a lot of time nitpicking over the use of the word "penthouse" to describe his luxurious apartment.

It's not a legal issue, it's moral, and he knows it, which is why he's focusing on the legal aspect.

As a public servant, he should have at least a smidgen of conscience. He's wealthy: let him pay regular rent, which is well within his means, and show that he cares about the people who have elected him again and again by releasing these properties to the folks who actually need them.

It's similar to social security. If you're wealthy, you're entitled to it legally, but it would be nice, once in a while, to see someone say: you know what? I'm actually doing pretty well; give this to someone who needs it.

But that would be going against our national religion: unfettered global hypercapitalism.