N.Y.C., Facing Pandemic Fallout, Freezes Rent for 2 Million Tenants for a Year

The rent freeze approved on Wednesday is the third under Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat who appoints all of the board’s members. (Last year, the members approved a 1.5 percent increase for one-year leases and 2.5 percent on two-year leases.)

After the vote, landlords criticized Mr. de Blasio for playing “pandemic politics” and not taking their own precarious situation into consideration.

The mayor was “denying owners of small buildings, mostly immigrants and people of color, the rent revenue needed to operate their buildings, finance capital improvements, infuse jobs and revenue into their neighborhoods, and pay property taxes that he raises every year,” said Joseph Strasburg, the president of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents some 25,000 landlords of rent-stabilized units.

Mr. de Blasio, who himself is a landlord, hailed the board’s action in a statement issued after the vote.

“Renters have never faced hardship like this,” he said. “They desperately need relief, and that’s why we fought for this rent freeze.”

The Rent Stabilization Association and other landlord groups have said that if tenants received a rent freeze, the city should enact a similar freeze for owners on property taxes and utilities.

The annual rent ritual, in which a city board with a bureaucratic name meets to decide the coming year’s housing costs for millions of New Yorkers, has long been a flash point that puts the grievances of tenants and landlords on full display.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/nyregion/nyc-rent-guidelines-board-freeze.html