Protecting Our Tenants

More than two million tenants live in rent-regulated apartments in New York, including over 20,000 residents of the 73rd Assembly District. "Reform" to rent regulation laws has led to the creation of provisions that have removed hundreds of East Side apartments from protections and resulted in unaffordable rents. As a member of the Assembly’s Housing Committee and former Chairman of the Subcommittee on Mitchell-Lama Housing, I have stood with my colleagues in the Assembly to repeatedly pass legislation that protects and expands affordable housing.

I have worked to repeal the Urstadt Law, an important step in the fight for affordable housing.
The first step in effective affordable housing reform is to repeal the state’s "Urstadt Law" which takes away the right of New York City to administer its own rent protection guidelines. This law gives sole authority to the State Legislature to strengthen rent regulation guidelines. This law allows State Senators from Upstate New York, without a single rent regulated tenant in their constituency, to vote on and determine rent protection policies for New York City. I am a sponsor of a bill to repeal the law (A. 1688), which has passed the Assembly year after year. The State Senate must act on this bill to bring real oversight to the affordable housing system in New York City.


I have authored legislation to protect rent regulated housing in New York City.
Elected officials in New York have a simple choice -- to protect apartments in the rent stabilization and control programs, or to let them slowly be converted to market rate apartments. I am working to change the law to change two existing clauses in the rent stabilization law that led to the deregulation of thousands of rent regulated apartments.

For example, I am the author of A. 860, legislation to adjust thresholds for high-rent, high-income (“luxury”) decontrol. Currently, a rent stabilized apartment can be deregulated when its legal rent exceeds $2,000 or more per month, or is occupied by a tenant or tenants whose collective incomes exceed $175,000 per year. A. 860, which passed the Assembly in 2008 and 2009, would raise the rent threshold to $2,700 and the income threshold to $240,000 to account for inflation since 1998, and provide for continuing annual inflation adjustments. This change would allow thousands of people who have called the East Side their home for decades to continue to live in Manhattan.

The Assembly also passed a series of bills in 2010 to protect rent regulated apartments. These bills would limit the amount a landlord can increase rent on vacated rent-regulated apartments from 20% to 10% (A.1686), extend the length of time over which major capital improvement (MCI) expenses may be recovered by landlords (A.1928 – co-sponsor), and change the monthly amount that a landlord may permanently increase the rent for an individual apartment improvement to 1/84th the cost of the project and establish reporting provisions to better notify tenants (A.5316 – co-sponsor).

In June, I testified before the Rent Guidelines Board, which has the authority to set a maximum rent increase level for rent-regulated tenants. Following this hearing, the Board announced that the maximum increase would be set at 2.25% for one-year leases, which is the lowest increase recommended by the Board in the last eight years.


I served as the Chair of the Mitchell-Lama Subcommittee in the Assembly, to protect the affordable housing program.
From 2005 to 2009, I served as Chair of the Assembly's Mitchell-Lama Housing Subcommittee. As Chair of this Subcommittee, I introduced legislation that balances the needs of tenants and building owners to keep this program healthy and available for New Yorkers. I have met with numerous tenant leaders to work on the package of legislation I have introduced in the Assembly.

• Preventing Use of “Unique and Peculiar” Clause: Prevents Mitchell-Lama buildings from receiving immediate, massive rent increases after the building leaves the program. In 2007, the DHCR, under Governor Spitzer, issued a new policy modeled after my legislation to prohibit the use of this "unique or peculiar" loophole. This bill has passed the Assembly several times.
• Improving Supervision of Buildings: Requires that in the event an owner violates regulations, the supervising agency "shall" take steps to remedy the situation. The current law states that the agency "may" – but is not required to – investigate the violations and penalize owners.
• Helping Facilitate Plans to Rehabilitate and Redevelop Properties: A. 10997 was signed into law in 2008 to help accommodate modern redevelopments of Mitchell-Lama buildings, while also allowing DHCR flexibility in how to supervise the property.
• Requiring Landlords to Stay in the Mitchell-Lama Program: I was the lead co-sponsor of the law (A. 11250 of 2004) that requires landlords to stay in the Mitchell-Lama program for a minimum of six additional years in exchange for the ability to refinance their mortgage at current favorable interest rates.
• Granting Additional Real Property Tax Exemptions: I was also a co-sponsor of the law (A.8028 of 2004) which grants additional real property tax exemptions for limited-profit and limited-dividend housing projects in exchange for remaining in the Mitchell-Lama program beyond 20 years.

The 2008-2009 Fiscal Year Budget contained $54 million for Mitchell-Lama rehabilitation and preservation due to the efforts of Housing Committee Chairman Vito Lopez and me. This allowed six Mitchell-Lama developments to stay in the program by using this funding for necessary improvements instead of leaving this affordable housing program.


I have introduced legislation in the Assembly to expand affordable housing for senior citizens.
Another role I am proud to play in the State Legislature is to expand rent and utility relief programs for senior citizens. For decades, the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) program has permitted seniors to stay in their homes despite rising rents. I have worked on legislation to improve the SCRIE program, including co-sponsoring the 2005 law to increase the Maximum Annual Income Ceiling from $24,000 to $29,000 phased in by 2009, and introducing a measure (A.1644) that has passed the Assembly on four occasions to exempt Social Security Income and supplemental SSI from the calculation of SCRIE “income.”


As the Chair of the Legislative Task Force on People with Disabilities, improving access to affordable housing for disabled individuals is a priority.
In 2009, I hosted an Assembly hearing to address the need for affordable housing for disabled individuals in New York State. I have also supported legislation in recent years aimed at addressing this need. I have re-introduced legislation in 2010 (A. 7179) which has passed the Assembly several times that would simplify the income criteria for the Disabled Rent Increase Exemption Program (DRIE) program by including persons with disabilities within the definition of household. This bill would simplify the income reporting requirements for DRIE. While SCRIE uses an income limit regardless of household size, the DRIE income limit is complicated and takes into account expenses such as attendant care, transportation, medical devices, and medications.

I introduced legislation (A. 9757) – which passed both houses of the Legislature – to ensure that housing protections offered to people with disabilities under Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act are also offered, and therefore enforceable, on the state level as well. The Assembly also passed my bill to prevent landlords from discriminating against tenants based on their source of income. Landlords are currently allowed to reject tenants because the tenant is receiving rental subsidies. Many disabled individuals rely on these subsidies to obtain housing, and so this type of discrimination affects the disabled more than other groups. My legislation would make this illegal, and would help the disabled to be able to live independently in the community. Finally, I introduced a bill to require an efficient emergency evacuation plan for people with disabilities who work or live in high-rise buildings in New York State.


I am working to reducing housing costs for all New Yorkers, and to make the process of buying a home safer and easier.
I have introduced legislation (A.955) to raise the threshold for the imposition of the “Mansion Tax” in New York City. Currently, State law requires an additional one percent tax on buyers of one to three family homes or an individual condominium or co-operative unit for $1 million or more. My legislation would raise that threshold to $1.75 million. In these difficult economic times, New Yorkers who wish to purchase new residential property should not be dissuaded by unnecessary taxes. Further, with the average price of an apartment purchase in Manhattan being considerably higher than $1 million, it is inaccurate to designate a $1 million home as a “mansion.”

In 2008, I authored a law to prohibit sex offenders from being entitled to a license as a real estate broker or salesman unless there are special circumstances. This legislation built on the recognition that New Yorkers could be vulnerable to violent crime within the framework and common practices of real estate transactions, especially regarding a profession where there is nearly unlimited access to people’s homes. I am proud to have received recognition from the New York State Association of Realtors for passage of this bill.
In 2010, I authored a bill (A.10443) that would streamline the process for real estate buyers to consent to a dual agency relationship where a brokerage company represents both sides of a transaction. Should the governor sign the bill, potential home buyers would not have to sign a dual agency waiver form every time they wish to see a home or apartment where the buyer and seller’s brokers are from the same agency. This will allow more transactions to proceed in an expeditious manner during a period where the economy desperately needs them to take place. The law would also extend dual agency disclosure requirements to condo and co-op transactions.


Tenant blacklists are harmful to renters and I have introduced legislation to prohibit this practice.
In 2009, I introduced A. 4134, legislation to prohibit landlords from “blacklisting” tenants solely because those people were involved in landlord-tenant action.

Tenant blacklisting occurs when a tenant-screening bureau purchases electronic data about landlord-tenant actions from the New York State Court system. These bureaus compile the information into a list that they then sell to landlords who are investigating potential tenants. Thus, landlords can choose to screen tenants based on their appearance in housing court and tenants often hesitate asserting their legal rights due to fear of being blacklisted. A. 4134 would classify blacklisting as illegal discriminatory behavior and prohibit tenant-screening bureaus from utilizing court records to form blacklists.

In 2010, I re-introduced this bill, and I will continue to do so until tenants are protected from this reprehensible practice.