New York Adopts Sweeping Tenant Protections on Rents, Evictions
- Democratic lawmakers disregard real estate industry protests
- Landlords say laws will hurt property values, building upkeep
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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New Yorkers won historic rental protections from the Democrat-controlled state legislature over the objections of landlords who warned the changes would make it impossible to maintain their properties.
The massive rewrite of rent rules -- covering about 2.4 million residents of the city’s 1 million regulated apartments -- aims to preserve affordable housing by eliminating most of the tools that landlords used to remove units from regulation. The package also abolishes a “vacancy bonus” that allowed property owners to raise rents 20% when a tenant departed.