The City Council Committee on Housing and Buildings voted this morning to push back the expiration date of the city’s rent stabilization law from the beginning of April to July.
The committee voted almost unanimously to pass the bill – Intro 0070 – onto the full council, where it’s expected to be approved in tomorrow’s stated meeting. Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez (D – Bronx) – the committee chair – stressed the importance of this bill, which was her first as a new council member.
“This bill, which passed today in the Housing and Buildings Committee and is slated to be voted on at tomorrow’s Stated Meeting, is critical to ensuring rent stabilization can continue in New York City,” Sanchez said.
Every three years, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, along with the U.S. Census Bureau, conducts the Housing and Vacancy Survey to determine – among many other things – if the city will continue to have rent stabilization regulations. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 U.S. Census, the survey had to be pushed back from 2020 to 2021.
Both the state and city passed a law last year to push the survey back to this year and this bill would push it back another three months.
“The extension this bill grants will provide HPD and the U.S. Census bureau additional time to thoroughly complete their analysis of the 2021 HVS,” Sanchez said.
Rent stabilization is a successor to the city’s rent control regulation passed in 1943, which capped the amount a landlord can charge in rent. Instead of placing a cap on rents, rent stabilization – which was passed in 1969 – means tenants won’t face high rent increases each year. The law allows rent stabilized apartments to stay affordable and also gives tenants certain protections from unfair evictions.
“Rent stabilization laws protect 1 million renter households each year in New York City from wrongful eviction and unreasonable rent increases,” Sanchez said.
