NY City’s Rent Board Approves Increases of 1.5% and 2.5%

 

By Colin Moynihan

New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board voted on Tuesday night to allow landlords of rent-stabilized apartments to charge increases of up to 1.5 percent for one-year leases and 2.5 percent for two-year leases.

The increases were seen as modest given the history of the nine-member board. Still, the permitted increases were the steepest since 2013 and were met by a barrage of loud jeers from the crowd at a public hearing inside the Great Hall at the Cooper Union.

The increases will be in effect for any of the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilized tenants who renew leases after Oct. 1.

After the meeting, Leah Goodridge, a board member who had proposed a freeze for one-year leases, said data indicated that landlords would still have been able to profit had one been implemented. An official with a building owners’ group did not immediately return a phone call requesting comment.

Lena Melendez, a tenant of a rent-stabilized apartment in Washington Heights, said that these days, when many stabilized apartments rent for more than $2,000 a month, even low-percentage increases can be a hardship.

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Source: The New York Times