June 18, 2024
The Rent Guidelines Board last night voted 5-4 to approve rent increases of 2.75% for 1-year and 5.25% for 2-year leases in regulated apartments. Tenant activists were gathered outside the Hunter College auditorium where the vote was held. A small number of them were taken in after an announcement that blocking the sidewalk would lead to arrest for disorderly conduct. Adán Soltren, a tenant member of RGB, addressed the activists outside after the vote to inform them of the increases.
Tenant activists were arrested.
City Council Member Gale Brewer.
Adán Soltren (C) and tenant activists outside Hunter College.
“Our volunteer Rent Guidelines Board members are charged with a vital but challenging task: protect tenants from unfair rent increases while also protecting the future of rent stabilized homes. The data reviewed by the board this year makes clear that our city’s tenants are facing a severe housing and affordability crisis, and that the quality of our city’s rent stabilized homes is threatened by growing operating and maintenance costs for owners. Since preliminary increases were released last month, we made clear that the high end of the proposed rent increases was untenable. That is why we are grateful for the board’s careful consideration of the data and their decision to limit increases this year. As we have said from day one, the only way to ultimately lower rents is to build more housing, and we are using every tool in the our toolkit to build that housing more quickly — cutting red tape, implementing the new state tools we fought hard to attain, financing record numbers of affordable housing, and advancing the‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ zoning amendment that will clear the way to build a little more housing across the city in every borough.” ~ Mayor Adams