As reported in Today's NY Sun, the City Council is looking to become more influential over the Rent Control Board, which oversees and sets the rents for more than a million rent stabilized apartments in New York City.
The proposal seems to be related to the process of appointment to the Board, which is now under the control of the Mayor and which under an Albany proposal supported by Speaker Christine Quinn, herself a beneficiary of the antiquated, anti-free market rent regulations in NYC, would "restructure the board and require council approval of board members, deny rent increases for one year for any apartment with serious violations, and require the use of a landlord's income and expense information in determining whether a rent increase is warranted."
This is just yet another in a long line of power-grabs made by NYC's bored legislative body lately and one that, like most efforts of left-wing legislators, will just make a bad situation worse - leading to higher housing costs in NYC, which is already one of the most expensive places to live in the world.
As with most of the council's shenanigans, their effort to gain power brings up an interesting debate.
If it makes sense, under this new proposal, to use "Landlord income" as a criterion for determining the rate of increase of a rent stabilized rent, why would it not make sense to use "tenant income" as a criterion for determining the same? The logic seems to be if a landlord is making a lot of money, he shouldn't have the right to raise rents on those in regulated apartments.
Well if that's the case, why should someone like the Council Speaker herself be offered rent-protection when she doesn't "need" it?
"Ms. Quinn earns $141,000 from the council and pays roughly $1,600 a month for her apartment, which she shares with her partner, Kim Catullo, a corporate lawyer, and is located on West 24th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues. Ms. Catullo's legal work likely puts the couple's combined household annual income at well above $300,000.Ms. Quinn also owns half of a four-bedroom home in Ocean Grove, N.J., that is worth more than $500,000, according to her latest financial disclosure report on file with the city's Conflicts of Interest Board."
Why should someone of her level of income and personal wealth be given a break on rent, especially when there are so many more needy residents in NYC who could benefit from rent-protection? I'm sure there are thousands of her own council constituents who are "more deserving" of her apartment than her, but that has not stopped this "dedicated public servant" (holding back my laughter...) from benefiting from the rent protection gambit.
A number of Councilmembers, just like Congressman Rangel and scores of other Liberal Pols, disingenuously play politics with the housing issues affecting the poor and the lower-middle class. They imply that without these rent regulation laws, the island of Manhattan would become a place just for the wealthy. But they know the facts. They know that the people who benefit from rent regulations are just as apt to be wealthy, like Quinn and Rangel, as they are to be poor.
If these two-faced, poverty-pimping demogogues wanted to truly help the poor of NYC find "affordable housing," they'd give up thier reduced rate apartments to those who actually need them and then pass legislation that means tested all of the rent regulated system. Move out "rich people" who live in cheap apartments commonly just because Grandma moved in there half a century ago and move in "needy" people that this program was intended to help.
It makes no sense for programs like these to exist without income verification, as most public welfare programs do. Even NY States overly-generous Medicaid programs are means tested - as well as federal food stamps programs.
the best thing for the Council to do if it truly wanted to reduce rents on the poor is to abolish the entire system. But barring that free-market action, means testing would at least make the program consistent with what it was "intended" to do...
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written by Andrew Roman , August 11, 2008
Generally, I don't have any particular love or affinity for landlords. As in any walk of life (and with any group of business people) there are good and decent ones and not-so-good ones.
But what absolutely rubs me the wrong way and violates my sense of right and wrong here is the fact that a group of left-leaning round-table dwellers will have the authority to bypass the marketplace and determine for many landlords exactly what their expenses for maintaining a multi-dwelling building is, regardless of the cost reality, and will - in effect - determine PRECISELY how much profit that same landlord will be "allowed" to make - if any.
This couldn't be more ANTI-American or ANTI-free market if it had to be (not that it is of any importance to today’s leftist). On what grounds (I ask rhetorically) does an elected body have the right to dictate to a group of businessmen what they can or cannot charge for a particular service? Why on earth SHOULD they have such power? No matter how much I try and dig deep into my rolodex of liberal inanity to try and make even an inkling of sense of "rent control," I just cannot do it.
It boggles the noodle, but how can any clear thinking individual not understand that rent control RAISES the costs of rents elsewhere? It’s not difficult. Substitute “rent” for “bananas” or “aspirin” and perhaps it becomes a bit more understandable.
And how can ANYONE not see that in this specific instance, rent control DIRECTLY benefits some of the members of the lefty-round table that makes up the New York City Council? (Surprise, surprise).
If the New York City Council were comprised primarily of Republicans, is there anyone with any fluid left in their brainpan who believes that this would NOT be a monumental scandal in this town?
written by Jay Golub , August 11, 2008
"If the New York City Council were comprised primarily of Republicans, is there anyone with any fluid left in their brainpan who believes that this would NOT be a monumental scandal in this town?"
Oh how true, but no one ever cares about reality like that.
The problem with this issue as i see it is that just as there are as many rich people in rent regulated apartments as there are poor, there are as many Republicans in them as there are Democrats.
Ideology NEVER trumps a smaller rent payment for, essentially, life!
The means testing aspect is the part that destroys the arguments made by "tenant's rights" groups, who, in reality, are no more than a bunch of landlord-haters or, more directly, they are haters of business and wealth.
ACORN, one of the "advocates" for extending and expanding rent regulations, are cover groups for Left-wing, anti-private property activists. They are the closest thing to the Communist Party this country has seen in decades (They also run the Working Families Party...).
The facts prove your point right Andrew, but the political reality is that fighting against rent regulation can't fit into a 30 second soundbite, so it's value as a political issue is almost nil.
That is why this opportunity to bring attention to this issue should not be missed while it's still on the front pages...
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