Now that rent regulation laws have expired (for the time being)

[Photo from June 9 by EVG reader Peter Brownscombe]

As you probably read, state lawmakers failed to strike a deal yesterday and let rent-control laws expire for some 2 million tenants.

Per The Wall Street Journal:

Senate President John Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, said the debate would likely stretch out until the end of the legislative session on Wednesday, since lawmakers don’t want to go home without a deal. “Given the fact that we’re [in Albany] for another 48 hours, we’re going to have further discussions,” he said Monday evening.

Mr. Flanagan dismissed concerns that chaos could ensue at midnight: “Do I think anything tumultuous or crazy is going to happen overnight? Absolutely not.”

In a news conference after the vote, Sen. Adriano Espaillat, a Manhattan Democrat, said “this is the Senate Republicans telling tenants in New York City to drop dead.”

Last night, the city sent out a letter signed by Vicki Been, commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development:

If you are one of the more than two million New Yorkers who lives in rent-regulated housing, here's what you need to know:
• Your lease is still in effect and remains in effect through the term of the lease.
• There are still laws on the books protecting you from harassment, and the City is enforcing those laws.
• We have put together an emergency hotline: Call 311 if you have any concerns or questions about your apartment.
• If your landlord is harassing you, withholding services, or trying to exploit any lapse in the rent regulation laws to get you to leave your apartment, you should call 311 immediately.

If you are a landlord:
• Please know that the City is committed to protecting New Yorkers who live in rent-regulated units.
• If you have any questions about what information you should be sharing with your tenants, please call 311.
• Tenant harassment laws are still in effect. Any lapse in the rent regulation laws is not an excuse to withhold heat, hot water, or other services -- the City will enforce the housing code.

For more information on tenants' rights (in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Haitian Creole, and Arabic), please go here

An East Village without rent regulations

[File photo via Bobby Williams]

The Times will have a piece in the magazine on Sunday on rent regulations... a version is now online titled "The Perverse Effects of Rent Regulation."

The East Village plays a starring role as writer Adam Davidson, co-founder of NPR's Planet Money, presents some what ifs about the elimination of rent regulations and other forms of housing subsidies. He goes over the two rental markets in the city: "Roughly half the apartments are under rent regulation, public housing or some other government program. That leaves everyone else to compete for the half with rents determined by the market."

One East Village realtor estimated that there are between 20-30 available apartments for rent in a given month.

He goes on to point out how "an East Village where nobody makes less than $90,000 a year might actually damage the city's long-term prospects" ... because the neighborhood has always "served as an initial toehold into this chaotic mess" of Manhattan.

Christopher Mayer, a housing economist at Columbia Business School, contends that these programs actually make the city much less affordable ... he lays out one scenario:

Eliminating rent regulation would be such a huge windfall for landlords, Mayer says, that he could imagine a sort of grand bargain. The programs go away, but landlords have to pay higher property taxes. The extra city revenue could go to a fund to help poor people afford market-rate apartments. In theory, this could be designed to make the shift win-win-win. The city could stay socioeconomically diverse without any six-bedroom apartments renting for $225.

Otherwise?

Writes Davidson: "What happens if all the rich people are on one island and the poor but creative are somewhere else? "

Anyway, there's a lot to take in with the article... too much to quickly recap in a post. Go read the article here.