Tenant Advocates Urge Local Control of Rent

By JOHN MORRIS

At a press conference on Tuesday City Councilman Jumaane Williams called for the repeal of the Urstadt law, which allows the state to control rent regulation for over a million city apartments.

“We need to take back control of New York, and out of the hands of the state,” Williams said on the steps of City Hall. “Republicans are always pushing for less state control and more local control, well this is their opportunity to give more local control.”

The law, named for former State Housing Commisioner Charles Urstadt, was enacted in 1971 as part of Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s vacancy-decontrol legislation, giving Albany the power to decide rent regulations for vacancies in the city.

The law also allows landlords to raise rents on vacant apartments once a tenant has moved out. The New York State Assembly has repeatedly passed repeal bills for the Urstadt law, but the repeal never makes it through the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Williams, and tenants groups have long charged that campaign contributions by real estate titans have stymied the repeal.

Moreover Urstadt strengthened the law in the 1990s when he engineered the passage of two major bills. In 1997 he was a major architect of the Rent Regulation Reform Act, which ended rent and eviction protections completely, and preserved Albany’s local power.

Williams and the tenant group CASA were encouraged that the Rent Guideline Board recently voted to boost rents on regulated apartments by only one percent on one-year leases, and 2.75 percent on two-year leases, the lowest hike in the agency’s history.

“But more needs to be done,” declared Shanequa Charles of CASA. “There are still families that are forced to choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table.” Charles said.

Williams and Council members Vanessa Gibson and Mark Levin vowed to go to Albany and push for changes in the Rent Regulation Reform Act 1997, which is up for renewal this year. But the effort was viewed by observers as an uphill battle.