Photo Courtesy of WIki Commons

by Alissa Fleck

Seventy-four-year-old Pearl Grossberg was recently evicted from her W. 12th St. rent-stabilized apartment, and has been couch-surfing ever since, reports Gothamist. Six years ago Grossberg got caught retiling her apartment—a violation of her rent stabilization contract—which resulted in a series of legal actions by her landlord that eventually got her thrown out. Grossberg had lived in the apartment for 44 years.

The apartment, for which Grossberg was paying less than $1,000, was re-sectioned into a two-bedroom for $3,800, according to Gothamist. “It’s all about money and greed,” said the resentful Grossberg. She has been couch-surfing at friends’ places since January, and sees no easy resolution for her predicament.

This is not the first time Grossberg, a longtime NYC resident, has known fame. She’s a “self-proclaimed Beatnik,” Gothamist reports, and was formerly a figure on the New York jazz scene. She had various affairs with notable musicians over the years, including Les McCan. “Nothing about me is traditional,” she told the weblog. After beating breast cancer in 1997, she became something of a fitness guru. Now, financial troubles keep her from aspiring to the former lifestyle and frequenting some of the old haunts.

Situations like Grossberg’s are not unusual, as landlords around the city are often eager to do away with rent-stabilized and rent-controlled tenants, many of whom are holdovers from the early 70s when such laws were instituted to keep prices from spiking in post-war buildings. They were meant to protect the working class, explains Gothamist, but today many of these apartments house the elderly around the city. There are currently 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, and 40,000 rent-controlled apartments in NYC.

The differences between rent control and rent stabilization are convoluted, but involve a maximum rent versus a cap on rate of change, respectively.

TV Still Courtesy of NY1

New York City Comptroller John Liu is calling for a rent freeze in the city. Liu, who is running for mayor, attributes his proposal to “economically challenging times” and delays in building affordable housing, Capital New York reports.

In his June 15th letter to the Rent Guidelines Board, Liu cites the City’s 9.7 percent unemployment rate and the fact that a large percentage of New Yorkers spend more than one third of their income on rent. Liu’s proposal comes on the heels of the Board’s preliminary decision to increase the cost of one- and two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments.

Liu says: “Rent stabilized housing is one of the few alternatives left for these low- and middle-income New Yorkers.”

The preliminary proposal would raise one-year leases between 1.75 and 4 percent, while two-year leases could jump between 3.5 and 6.75 percent, according to NY1. 

Liu also cites the fact that those living in rent-stabilized conditions have “been hit especially hard by the economic downturn.” The city has nearly one million of these rent-regulated apartments, NY1 reports.

The board will vote on the increases on June 21.

—Alissa Fleck

NYU Furman Center's s Vicki Been

In advance of the Supreme Court’s announcement on whether it will hear the case of Harmon v. Kimmel, which challenges rent regulation laws in New York City. NYU’s Furman Center’s fact brief details the number of rent stabilized units in NYC, and provides both demographic and socioeconomic data comparing the tenants inhabiting these units with tenants in market rate units.

“In Harmon v. Kimmel, petitioner James D. Harmon argues that rent stabilization is a violation of several provisions of the United States Constitution,” said Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. “The case would have broad implications forNew York City’s rental market, approximately 47% percent of which is subject to rent control or rent stabilization laws.”

The case of Harmon v. Kimmel challenges rent control and rent stabilization laws that have existed in NYC since the 1940’s, which allows “more than 1 million city residents to pay artificially low rents,” according to WNYC. The Supreme Court can choose at any time between now and June to take the case, or to not hear it at all (which would mean the law would stay in place).

With the state’s rent stabilization laws set to expire next year, Gov. David Paterson announced a package of proposals that would change when landlords can charge market rate for regulated apartments. The package also addresses the uncertainty of how the Stuyvesant Town ruling on tax benefits and rent regulation affects tenants and landlords.

But West Side legislators who have written and pushed for pro-tenant bills have reservations about the governor’s plan, and hope that this is merely the start of a debate about new housing laws.

Under Paterson’s proposals, the threshold for vacancy decontrol—the point at which a newly vacant unit is taken out of the rent regulation system and converted to market rate housing—would be raised to $3,000 a month in rent, up from $2,000.

But Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, author of a vacancy decontrol bill that has been bottled in the State Senate, wants the practice completely lifted. Paterson’s proposal on raising the limit to $3,000 barely changes the existing law.

“The problem is, landlords can get it to $3,000 as easy as they can get it to $2,000,” Rosenthal said. “Clearly, this is a gift to the landlords.”

Landlord organizations, however, are griping about the package just as loudly as tenant supporters.

“That’s perhaps the most ridiculous proposal amongst them,” said Jack Freund, executive vice president of the Rent Stabilization Association, about raising the decontrol level. “People who can afford $3,000 rents don’t need rent protections.”

Paterson also tried to clear up confusion around the State Court of Appeals decision regarding J-51 tax benefits. The state’s highest court found that Tishman Speyer, owner of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, wrongly used a tax benefit—known as J-51—to make renovations and raise rents, ultimately deregulating apartments. Freund said the decision has frozen transactions because building values are uncertain now that longstanding practices have been ruled unlawful.

Under the governor’s plan, tenants in wrongly deregulated units can recoup money from owners who wrongly overcharged rent. Rents can be claimed from up to four years prior to the court’s 2009 decision. Owners in the rent stabilization system would also be allowed to apply for rent deregulation when a unit becomes vacant and the rent hits the proposed $3,000 level, even if the landlord receives the J-51 tax benefit.

That doesn’t sit well with State Sen. Tom Duane, whose district covers the Upper West Side as well as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

“It undercuts the Court of Appeals decision,” Duane said. “To say landlords and developers can take advantage of J-51 and not be in the rent stabilization system is philosophically wrong.”