Rent-stabilized tenants will see greater spike than last year

Many of the city’s rent-stabilized apartments will see a greater rent spike than they did in 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported. The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, a nine-member panel, voted to set a range for increases of between 3.25 percent and 6.25 percent for one-year leases, and between 5 percent and 9.5 percent for two-year leases.

The actual increases – which will affect both the city’s nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments as well as lofts – will be set a public meeting on June 20, a week after a public hearing on the recommendations.

The new increases will cover about 600,000 leases that will be signed in the year beginning Oct. 1. The minimum increases recommended by the panel are well above a 2 percent increase on a one-year lease and a 4 percent increase on a two-year lease adopted in 2012.

The panel consists of five public representatives, two landlords and two tenants. The landlord and tenant members voted against the approved recommendation.

Steven Schleider, a landlord member, told the Journal that there were a “large number of at-risk families” who could be helped by government assistance, but most tenants could afford to chip in for rising costs. Schleider recommended an increase of up to 11 percent over two years.

On the other side of the coin, tenant member Harvey Epstein, who recommended no increase, told the Journal that “most tenants are suffering,” and that believing they could afford a rent spike “flies in the face of reality.” [WSJ] –Hiten Samtani