State lawmakers struck a deal Tuesday to toughen the laws that set the rents in nearly 1 million New York City apartments on Tuesday, backing changes that would make it harder for landlords to raise rents and evict tenants.
The package of rent bills is set to be formally rolled out Wednesday and has the backing of the leadership in the Democratic-run Assembly and Senate, sources confirmed to the Post.
The package includes eight on the nine changes that tenants activists have demanded for years, sources said.
- Preferential rents would be guaranteed for the tenancy, preventing landlords from jacking the price to the legal maximum at lease renewal time
- Ending the ‘vacancy bonus,’ which allowed landlords to increase rents by 20 percent each time a regulated apartment turns over
- Repeals provisions of state law that allowed landlords to deregulate apartments and charge market rates for units when rents exceeded $2,700, two sources told The Post
That change effectively guarantees that New York’s nearly 1 million stabilized units will continue to have their prices set by the Rent Guidelines Board for the foreseeable future.
Additionally, the law would also cut the amount landlords can increase rents to pay for major building improvements from 6 percent a year to 2 percent.
That’s a partial victory for landlords against tenant activists, who were pushing to do away with the “major capital improvement” hikes altogether after a series of well-publicized abuses.
The new would step up enforcement, by requiring state’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal to inspect 25 percent of apartment buildings where landlords claimed improvements were made to ensure the work is actually done after well-publicized abuses.
The deal also appeared to leave another progressive deal on the floor. It did not appear to include requirements that landlords have good cause to evict tenants.
Other details about the deal remained murky.
Sources said the legislation did not appear to extend rent stabilization protections to apartment buildings built after 1974.
But they added that it would likely allow municipalities outside of New York City to opt into rent regulation.
Unlike the state’s current rent laws, which expire Saturday, these changes would be made permanent, effectively ending one of the most fiercely contested reoccurring battles in Albany.
“The Senate and Assembly have conferenced a rent protections package and we have reached an agreement,” a representative for Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said in a statement. “We are finalizing this legislation and we will be issuing a joint statement with additional details when it is complete.”
News of the deal came just hours after Gov. Cuomo and his top aides mocked state lawmakers in a Tuesday morning news conference for struggling to strike a deal on rent laws, despite weeks of haggling.
Cuomo said earlier Tuesday said that “I will sign” whatever the legsislature passed to beef up rent protections.