Paterson Proposing Rent Law Changes After Stuy Town Lawsuit
By Eliot Brown May 26, 2010 2:36 pm
reprints
The Paterson administration today is unveiling its plans for rent regulations in the wake of a major court ruling last year that found the owners of Stuyvesant Town (and thousands of other apartments) had illegally brought regulated units to market rate.
According to a person briefed by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, the administration plans to announce a proposal Wednesday morning to extend current rent-stabilization laws by six eight years and raise the vacancy decontrol cap (the minimum rent for a regulated apartment to turn market rate) to $3,000 a month from $2,000. The laws are currently set to expire next year, in what could be a blistering fight over new legislation between tenants and landlord groups.
To deal with the court ruling, the state would set rules that bring new clarity to how much owners owe market-rate tenants who, under the ruling, were overpaying for their apartments. (This is being contested in court in the Stuyvesant Town case, where the tenants claim they are owed more than $200 million in rent overpayment.)
ebrown@observer.com
