Certificate of No Harassment Bill Takes on Tenant Displacement

The City Council Committee on Housing and Buildings is holding a hearing today on several pieces of legislation intended to provide new tools to address the pervasive problem of harassment and displacement of low- and moderate-income tenants. One important bill would create a new citywide Certificate of No Harassment Program, which community groups believe would help disincentivize the harassment and displacement of tenants from affordable, rent-stabilized apartments.

The renewed focus on preservation of the City's existing affordable housing comes as the Administration's proposal for Mandatory Inclusionary Housing makes its way through the final stages of the land use process, and as local coalitions throughout the city are continuing to organize to ensure that proposed rezonings will benefit current neighborhood residents. In communities throughout the city, rising market rents, sometimes exacerbated by proposed rezonings, are increasing pressure on low- and moderate-income tenants. Rent-stabilized tenants are particularly at risk because loopholes in the rent laws set up backwards incentives for landlords to drastically increase their profits by getting long-term, lower-paying tenants out. Intro 152-A - legislation creating a citywide Certificate of No Harassment program - would counteract that incentive and discourage tenant harassment. In many cases, landlords use individual apartment or building-wide renovations to drive up rents, deregulate apartments, and attract higher-paying tenants.

The proposed legislation would create new leverage to intervene in this cycle, flipping the existing incentive structure so that harassment is discouraged rather than rewarded. Landlords with a history of tenant harassment would only be able to get permits for renovations from the Department of Buildings if they agreed to set aside a portion of the building as affordable housing. By preventing unscrupulous landlords from profiting off of harassment, the legislation would provide a strong disincentive for tenant harassment and help to prevent the waves of displacement so many communities have been experiencing. A model of this mechanism exists in the zoning text for the Special Clinton District on Manhattan's West Side, where a Certificate of No Harassment requirement for Department of Buildings permits has helped to prevent the displacement of long-term residents and preserve a genuinely mixed-income community in an area that could easily have been completely overtaken by luxury development.

Citywide legislation for a new Certificate of No Harassment program would ensure that protections are in place proactively for neighborhoods that see increasing rents on the horizon, for those that are currently experiencing gentrification, and in advance of the speculation spurred by anticipated rezonings. And we have the opportunity to learn from and update the model to respond to the current forms harassment takes - specifically by including a wider set of permits in the process, but using data to target attention on those buildings where harassment is indicated, allowing community organizations' and the City's resources to be used effectively where they are most needed. It will take more than one new tool to effectively prevent the continued displacement of low-income tenants from increasing numbers of neighborhoods around the city. But a Certificate of No Harassment program would be an important step towards ensuring that all New Yorkers are protected in their homes and communities.