When he ran for mayor, Eric Adams positioned himself as a working-class fighter – a lifelong New Yorker who grew up in poverty and won support from voters in boroughs outside Manhattan.
But in his first months in office, he was able to oversee rent increases of up to 9% on the city’s roughly one million stable rental apartments.
The powerful Rent Guidelines Board, which is effectively controlled by the mayor, will vote on Thursday on a proposal to raise rents from 2.7 to 4.5 percent on one-year leases and 4.3 to 9% for two-year lease. A final vote is expected in June.
Critics say that rate is too high – 9% would be the biggest increase since 1990 – and it’s not fair that the state’s eviction moratorium ended in January and market-rate rents across the city are rising.
More than 2,000 evictions are being filed every weekand Rent has increased by 33 percentaccording to a real estate website.
The proposed rent increase presents a challenge for Mr. Adams, a Democrat who is facing criticism within his party for backing any substantial increases when Many New Yorkers are still struggling during the pandemic.
His predecessor, Bill de Blasio, advocated a rent freeze and modest increases during his eight years in office because he considered them important to combat inequality.
Mr. Adams, himself a homeowner and renter in his Brooklyn property, which is not rent-stable, defended the need for rent increases, though he did not say how much they would increase.
He thinks higher rents are necessary for small property owners facing rising costs.
“We have to be fair here – allowing tenants to be in control of their lives, but we need to take care of those retail store owners,” Mr. Adams said at a meeting. reported last month. “If you invest all your money in a 10-unit house, and you can’t pay the bills, you could lose that money.”
Groups such as the Working Family Group note that most stable rental buildings are owned by large landlords, not small property owners. They point to one report by a tenant advocate and urban planning assistant professor at New York University shows that only about a third of regulated buildings are owned by landlords with five or fewer buildings.
The problem is part of a growing housing rift between Mr. Adams and City Council, where leaders have criticized the mayor’s focus on dismantling homeless camps. at a time of scarcity of affordable housing.
Adrienne Adams, Speaker of the Council, called the rent increase proposal “unconscionable” and said they would “only exacerbate the housing and homelessness crisis confronting our city.”
Basil Smikle said the politics of the rent increase is complicated for the mayor. director of the public policy program at Hunter College. Mr. Adams may be seen as insensitive to the concerns of New Yorkers, who are struggling to pay rent, but his message of supporting small property owners has can connect with his supporters, Mr. Smikle said.
“It is possible that a lot of the retail store owner comes from areas where he has strong support in Queens and Brooklyn,” he said.
One Report of the Hiring Guidance Board found that costs have substantially increased for building owners since last spring, including a 19.6% increase in fuel costs. Insurance costs increased by 10.9% and utilities such as electricity by 5.8%.
Shahana Hanif, a City Council member from Brooklyn and a the chairman of the radical caucussaid the rent increase would be “extremely painful” for tenants and urged the Adams government to look for other solutions to support small homeowners.
“I am staunchly opposed to rent increases and am truly ashamed that the mayor has not shown the compassion and empathy we need for tenants,” she said.
The Tenancy Guidelines Board’s annual decision, which affects more than two million residents living in buildings built before 1974 with six or more units, has always sparked heated debate and advocacy efforts. fierce lobby from tenants and landlords.
For decades, the board approved substantial increases almost every year – typically from 3% on one-year leases to 8% on two-year leases – but that ended under Mr. de Blasio’s time. Upon leaving office, Mr. de Blasio cited the frozen board’s rents and modest increases during his tenure as one of the his greatest achievements.
Landlords have pushed rents up significantly at the upper end of the proposed range. They think new State tenancy law passed in 2019 Tenant incentives have made conditions more difficult for landlords.
“This is the starting point for owners to recover from eight years of rent freezes and guidelines,” said Vito Signorile, vice president of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents about 25,000 owners. inadequate, and draconian changes to state tenancy laws.
The rental board has nine members, all of whom are appointed by the mayor: five representatives of the public, two from owners and two from tenants. Mr. Adams named three appointees since taking office.
His selection in March of Arpit Gupta, a finance professor at NYU and a supporting fellow at the far-right Manhattan Institute, as a public representative has raised concerns among tenant advocates.
Mr. Gupta told Vox last year that he was “a bit skeptical about rent control.” He declined an interview request on Wednesday.
Brad Lander, the city’s curator, said that appointing someone who “expresses skepticism about the entire rent regulation system is a profound issue”. He urge the board to reconsider Its proposal increased.
“While the modest rent increase may be deserved this year, Mayor Adams’ appointed council must not go back to the days of Giuliani and Bloomberg’s unreasonably high increases,” Mr. Lander said. ,” said Mr. Lander.
Mr. Adams also appointed Christina Smyth, an attorney who said on LinkedIn that she represents “multi-family building owners,” to represent the homeowner, and Adán Soltren, a staff attorney at the Association of Civil Engineers. Help Legal, a nonprofit that provides legal services to poor New Yorkers, as a tenant representative.
Mr. Adams won last year’s competitive Democratic primaries with support from Black and Latino voters as well as working-class neighborhoods, but he also close friends with business leaders and real estate developers.
Members of the Real Estate Board of New York, the real estate industry’s main lobbying body, have donated to Mr. Adams’ campaign or to a PAC that has supported him.
Aby Rosen, co-founder of RFR Realty, gave $100,000 to the PAC, called “Strong Leadership NYC,” and Gary Barnett, founder of Extell Development Company, donated $250,000. Other real estate executives such as Richard LeFrak, chief executive officer of the LeFrak Foundation, have donated to Mr. Adams’ campaign.
Mr. Adams said last month that small homeowners have been “slaughtered” by the pandemic and could lose their buildings to homeowners who own thousands of units.
“What if they lose their buildings?” Mr. Adams said. “The giants came and bought the buildings, and now we see the neo-evolution that we all say we fear.”
Dana Rubinstein and Mihir Zaveri contribution report.
