Cuomo’s Rent Check: Governor in the Middle as Dems Split Big Real Estate

reprints


Rent stabilization has been renewed and revised numerous times, with landlords making important gains over the past two decades. Most recently, in 2003, a Republican majority in the Senate renewed the law in a midnight session, but kept the cap at $2,000. Since regulations were first relaxed in 1993, over 300,000 apartments have been deregulated.

That chills New York City Democrats, whose constituencies are filled with thousands of people who stand to lose their infinitely more affordable homes. Local Democrats hope this will be the year they finally turn the tide, and Mr. Silver’s linkage of what they call rent reform to 421-a could help them do it.

SEE ALSO: Bowser Finalizes Deal to Keep Capitals and Wizards in DC Until 2050

“Gee, what geniuses they are,” said Joseph Strasburg, head of the pro-landlord Rent Stabilization Association, when asked if linking rent reform to 421-a will split the industry. “The reality is, both associations are connected together on this issue. We support [the Real Estate Board of New York’s] desire to get 421-a,” which promotes “development and the hiring of thousands and thousands of jobs, like carpenters and steelworkers.”

But earlier in the phone interview, Mr. Strasburg pointed to divisions in the industry that gave money to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign: “Substantial dollars were from developers. We’re bricks and mortars, focusing on existing buildings that families own, operate and want to keep. I challenge anybody to try to lump us as part of the bigger picture.”

In spring 2010, when Democrats controlled both legislative houses, they and the Republicans (and the industry) hammered out a package favorable to tenants that also included an extension of 421-a. The Assembly passed the bill based on it, but internecine warfare over disgraced Bronx pol Pedro Espada doomed the bill in the Senate. (A spokesman for the current Senate majority leader, Dean Skelos, says the Republicans are focused on the budget now, and as for rumors that rent stabilization would be allowed to lapse post-June 15, other Republicans say that’s not true.)

Steven Spinola, head of REBNY, the city’s leading trade group for the industry, including both landlords and developers, declined to say whether he supports linking rent stabilization and 421-a. “I’m not sacrificing anything,” he said, adding, “Rent regulation affects well over one million apartments in the city of New York. Four-twenty-one-a will benefit thousands of jobs and new housing. I’m not going to say one of them is a top priority.”

For now, the Democratic strategy is clearly in flux. At the chilly Feb. 24 press conference, senators and assembly members threw their support behind a bill of Senator Espaillat’s that would raise the threshold for deregulation to $3,000 a month; stop converting vacant apartments to market rate; close some of the loopholes landlords commonly use to raise rents; and return most of the apartments deregulated in the last 20 years to stabilization.

Publicly, Governor Cuomo appears to have no stomach for a rent fight while his term is staked on getting a budget passed.

“The important consideration is Governor Cuomo, and that to me at least is an unknown,” said the Assembly majority leader, Ron Canestrari. “The more we complicate the budget, whether it’s rent control or a real property tax cap, the more difficult it is to get this enacted in about a month.”

But if it’s not part of the budget, won’t it just die? “That’s a concern. I can understand that, too,” he said, adding vaguely, “There are always ways.”

lkusisto@observer.com