By Philip Newman
The small rent increases approved by the Rent Guidelines Board Monday disappointed both Queens renters and landlords in a decision that marked the lowest rise in the city agency’s history.
Many tenants had expected a record-setting rent freeze and property owners were dismayed at rent hikes they saw as too low.
In the 45-year history of the board, the 1 percent increase for one-year leases was the lowest ever approved. The board ruled that two-year leases would rise by 2.75 percent. The new hikes take effect Oct. 1.
“It’s a disappointment” said Harvey Epstein, associate director of the Urban Justice Center, which provides legal assistance to the city’s poor
But property owners had wanted more.
“Real estate taxes went up two-eighths of a percent this year,” said Jimmy Silber, an apartment owner. “The small properties owner is going to be hit hard.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio had mentioned the idea of a rent freeze in his election campaign but did not make public statements on the issue after he took office. The mayor had appointed six of the board’s nine-member board.
Several hundred people attended the Rent Guidelines Board’s decision at Cooper Union Monday night, many chanting, shouting and jeering at the 5-4 vote.
Many hoisted banners carrying huge zeros with a percent sign and reading “De Blaseo [sic] Remember Zero.”
The board’s decision affects 986,840 apartments in New York City’s five boroughs, which is almost half the apartments in the city. Statistics show that more than 33 percent of rent-stabilized tenants pay more than half their income on rent. Tenants of stabilized apartments have a median income of $37,000 annually.
There are 144,000 rent-stabilized apartments in Queens.
Last week Queens renters and a number of landlords jammed a room at Queens Borough Hall in a noisy finale to a series of hearings before Monday’s vote.
It was stranding room only June 18 and many participants carried signs displaying only a giant 0.
The back wall was a sea of yellow shirts worn by members of Chhaya, an advocacy organization for immigrants, particularly Tibetans and other South Asians. Their signs were in English and Tibetan.
Radel Rahman, a senior community organizer, said Tibetans, as most immigrants, faced extreme problems when it came to finding an affordable place to live.
“For us, it is more like trying to get a rollback in rents, so serious is the problem,” Rahman said.
.As always, those at the hearing were overwhelmingly renters, but a number of real estate owners addressed the hearing.
“I know there is little sympathy for landlords in this room,” said Tony Subraj, who owns apartments in Jamaica.
“I come here as a modest-sized landlord and the buildings we mange were decrepit when we first purchased them with hundreds of violations each,” he said. “They now are significantly improved with zero or close to zero violations These improvements, however, happened only in digging into our own pockets and forgoing any real return on our investments as Rent Guidelines Board increases have continually lagged our increase in operating costs.”
Much of what speakers said was lost if they used the word zero, which set off extended and near deafening shouts and screams.
In May, the Rent Guidelines Board set the range it was considering for rent increases, which included zero to 3 percent for one-year leases. For two-year leases the board set limits from 0.5 percent to 4.5 percent.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at timesledgernews@cnglocal.com or phone at 718-260-4536.
