Amid a raucous preliminary hearing repeatedly disrupted by protesters, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board voted to raise rents by as much as 5% next year, or 7% for two-year leases.
And no politician dared to say those hikes are far too low.
Instead, City Councilmembers Shahana Hanif, Chi Ossé, Alexa Avilés and Sandy Nurse, all of Brooklyn, plus Queens’ Tiffany Cabán led a mob of protestors to storm the stage and commandeer the panel’s mics in a thuggish act of political theater.
Mayor Eric Adams, meanwhile, released a mealy-mouthed statement that failed to condemn the insurrectionists and called a 7% hike “clearly beyond what renters can afford and what I feel is appropriate this year.”
Yet he admitted: “Property owners face growing challenges maintaining their buildings and accessing financing to make repairs.”
Even at the high end, the proposed hikes don’t come close to reflecting how landlords have been socked by a 19% jump in the cost of home-heating fuel and overall building maintenance costs that rose 8.1% last year.
Not to mention soaring property taxes or the costs of the city law mandating costly lower-emissions refits.
“We simply cannot put tenants in a position where they can’t afford to make rent,” quoth the mayor, who happens to control the board.
Maybe he was having a senior moment?
After all, the proposed hikes are below inflation and the increase in Social Security benefits.
And what about putting landlords in a position where they’re just plain losing money?
Smaller ones, especially, are reeling from a state law that’s forcing older units — too costly to renovate — off the market.
And from the federal eviction ban (and state court shutdown) that let unscrupulous tenants skip paying anything for two years.
Adams talked of “providing building owners with the resources they need to provide safe, high-quality homes,” but the RGB can’t do that even with the rent hikes he calls too high.
To avoid major decay of the city’s affordable housing stock, he and the council need to get landlords major relief: property-tax rebates, for starters, plus repeal of green-building mandates.
Of course, the council is packed with posturing fools like Ossé & Co., whom the mayor plainly doesn’t care to confront.
Yet “splitting the baby” between the radicals’ demands and, well, reality is no answer. Unlike the case before King Solomon, tenant activists are fine with killing the baby.