(Long Island, NY) Senator Espaillat (D-Manhattan/Bronx) today joined members of the Senate Democratic Conference to unveil an affordable housing package to better ensure fair housing practices throughout New York State.
Senator Adriano Espaillat, Ranker of the Senate’s Housing Committee, said, “In the last four years 35,000 rent regulated units have become market rate apartments and thousands of families were displaced as a result. More than 200,000 units have been lost since the early 90’s. We cannot hope to end the housing crisis in New York City if we continue to lose affordable housing at this horrendous rate. I have introduced legislation (S.3364-B/ The Tenant Protection Act of 2015) which would protect tenants from unfair rent increases and ensure regulated units remain affordable. Ending session with no rent laws or the same set of weak rent laws would put hundreds of thousands of families at risk of losing their homes.”
The Senate Democratic Conference proposals include renewing and strengthening rent control legislation for another 2 years through the Tenant Protection Act of 2015, which is Sponsored by Senator Espaillat.
The package of affordable housing legislation includes bills that will:
- Repeal provisions of State and City statutes that remove apartments from rent stabilization when they are vacated and could be rented for monthly rents of $2,500 or more. The bill also re-regulates units deregulated due to vacancy since 1993 to their December 31, 2014 rates.
- Repeal provisions permitting rent increases of 20% or more upon vacancy of a rent stabilized dwelling unit.
- Standardize the rental adjustment a landlord may impose for the total cost of an individual apartment improvement, reduce the increase allowed to 1/84th of the costs and require DHCR to issue a schedule of reasonable costs for repairs so that landlords can’t fraudulently attempt to deregulate an apartment through improvements that may not have been made or for inflated claims of costs incurred.
- Provide that major capital improvements (MCI) be calculated as a rent surcharge and will not become part of the base legal regulated rent by which rent increases are calculated; requires the amount be separately designated and billed as such; prevents landlords from receiving a financial windfall from MCI funded by the New York State Energy and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
