The Times covers yesterday's decision to increase the cost of rent-stabilized apartments -- 8.5% for two year leases, and 5.5% for one-year leases.
What's not being said: many rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments probably are already going at about half the market value (especially in Manhattan.) I lived in Cambridge, MA when they ended rent control, and despite major protests, there was no mass rent hike, and no mass exodus.
New Yorkers want to simultaneously maintain low rents and see more apartment built. If you're not one of the 1 million already in rent-stabilized apartments, you're suffering from the result of this artificial depression of market rates. Putting limits on what some tenants can pay (rather than letting the market decide) makes the rent for everyone else higher, discourages new buildings and reduces the availability of apartments to those willing to pay market prices.
Yes, I realize the flip side of this -- that rising rents would force some people out of apartments if they can't pay. But I find it hard to listen to people claiming hardship for paying sub-market rents, while I have to pay some of the highest rents in the nation if I want to get a new place, simply because my needs in terms of apartment size change.
[Via Gothamist]
well said- i pay more than 2k for a 600 square foot apartment in a rent controlled building in soho. sometimes it makes me angry that there are people in the building that have lived there for 40 years or inherited apts and they are paying like $400 for larger places. But then I think what the neighborhood would be like without them- we'd lose all the diversity on the street. And the fact is, I can afford to pay the rent. So I definitely don't support getting rid of these old tenants just so I can pay a few hundred bucks less. And I do understand that for an old couple in their 70s, a rent hike of $50 is a major hardship.