The State Assembly has passed a bill to extend and bolster the city’s rent regulation laws through 2016, Speaker Sheldon Silver’s office announced yesterday evening. The bill would repeal vacancy decontrol, which allows landlords to deregulate apartments when they become vacant or when the rent tips above $2,000 monthly. It would also raise the thresholds at which landlords can deregulate apartments based on tenants’ income. Landlords can currently begin charging market-rate rents when a tenant makes more than $175,000 per year and pays at least $2,000 in monthly rent; under the new rules, those limits would be increased to $300,000 and $3,000. TRD [more]

The Real Estate Board of New York is warming to the idea of an increase in the city’s $2,000 rent deregulation limit after years of opposing rent regulations altogether, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared to look at a higher number,” Steven Spinola, REBNY’s president, told the Journal. “It depends what the rest of the package is.” The stance represents a major shift for the real estate industry’s leading trade association, which has long been fighting off efforts by advocacy groups to limit landlords’ ability to charge market-rate rents in vacant rent-regulated apartments once their rents reached the a certain rent threshold. Comments

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With New York’s rent-regulation laws set to expire June 15, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has released a new report that supports their extension. Entitled, “The New Housing Emergency,” the report (in full after the jump) says loopholes in the city’s current rent-stabilization rules — like vacancy decontrol and rent increases due to renovations — result in the loss of more than 10,000 rent-regulated apartments per year. The median income for tenants of the 1.02 million rent-regulated apartments in New York City is $38,000, according to the report. TRD  [more]

Fewer than 40,000 rent-controlled apartments remain in New York City, down from 155,361 units in 1987, and their mostly elderly occupants are increasingly locked in battles with impatient landlords who want them out. Magnus Saethre, a 97-year-old World War II veteran who pays $63 per month for a one-bedroom apartment in Sunset Park, has paid $25,000 in legal fees because he alleges that the landlord has harassed him and his caregiver while letting his unit deteriorate in an attempt to force him out. His story isn’t an uncommon one, and the only recourse the city’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal has is to issue fines and to lower the occupant’s rent payments even further as an incentive for landlords to address the problems. [Post]

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The Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-2 last night for the lowest rent increases since 2002 for the city’s one million rent-stabilized apartments. For one-year lease renewals, a 2.25 percent rent hike was approved; for two-year lease renewals, the increase is 4.5 percent. Predictably, reactions were split. Many landlords, whose two representatives on the board voted against the minimal increases, said they felt shortchanged, while some tenants lamented the fact that there would be a rent hike at all. [Post]

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The Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-2 last night for the lowest rent increases since 2002 for the city’s one million rent-stabilized apartments. For one-year lease renewals, a 2.25 percent rent hike was approved; for two-year lease renewals, the increase is 4.5 percent. Predictably, reactions were split. Many landlords, whose two representatives on the board voted against the minimal increases, said they felt shortchanged, while some tenants lamented the fact that there would be a rent hike at all. [Post]

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The New York State Assembly has voted to extend New York’s rent stabilization and rent control laws in their current form through June 15, 2018, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Housing Committee Chair Vito Lopez announced today. The bill, said Lopez, is “a step towards creating certainty for the thousands of tenants of rent-stabilized apartments.” Rent regulations are intended to address vacancy rates of lower than 5 percent, below which point housing is legally considered to be in a state of emergency. New York City’s residential vacancy rate has been recently reported at less than 3 percent. “Affordable housing is a necessity, not a luxury,” Silver said. “We must continue addressing the needs of middle-income families during this economic crisis.” TRD

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The New York State Assembly has voted to extend New York’s rent stabilization and rent control laws in their current form through June 15, 2018, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Housing Committee Chair Vito Lopez announced today. The bill, said Lopez, is “a step towards creating certainty for the thousands of tenants of rent-stabilized apartments.” Rent regulations are intended to address vacancy rates of lower than 5 percent, below which point housing is legally considered to be in a state of emergency. New York City’s residential vacancy rate has been recently reported at less than 3 percent. “Affordable housing is a necessity, not a luxury,” Silver said. “We must continue addressing the needs of middle-income families during this economic crisis.” TRD

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Rent-controlled apartments are slowly diminishing according to the New York Times. The number of rent-stabilized units in the city dropped to 848,000 in 2008, according to the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, down from 900,000 in 2003. The cause of the decline is rampant disrepair among such buildings, according to some tenants’ rights advocates. One such tenant, John Burke, who pays $288 a month for his studio at 218 East 84th Street, said that he’s spent $13,500 to do repairs on his unit himself, and that taking his landlord to court to keep his home has cost him $11,000 in legal fees. Still, he believes the fight is worth it. “I have been fighting for other tenants and myself,” Burke said. “We can leave a road map showing people how to win.” [NYT]

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Tishman Speyer and BlackRock, the owners of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, will not make today’s scheduled $16 million mortgage payment to senior lenders for the East Side apartment complex, the companies have confirmed in a statement.

Reports surfaced this morning that a technical default on the loan was imminent, though the news was hardly surprising to the city’s real estate community, which has been closely watching the beleaguered property in recent months. In November, Tishman Speyer and BlackRock entered negotiations with special servicer CWCapital to restructure $3 billion in debt for Stuyvesant Town, and speculation abounded that its reserves could be depleted before the close of 2009.

The partners purchased the 110-building complex in 2006 for $5.4 billion; the most recent appraisal valued it at just $1.9 billion.

“Today’s announcement has no immediate impact on tenant services or the day-to-day operations of the community,” the companies said in the statement. Furthermore, the statement said, “the debt for Stuyvesant and Peter Cooper Village is secured exclusively by the property and is not cross-collateralized with any others. It does not impact, nor is it impacted by, any other properties in which Tishman Speyer or BlackRock may be invested.” TRD
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