The cost of leasing one of the roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments across the Big Apple may rise by as much as 7% next year, the Rent Guidelines Board voted Tuesday during a raucous meeting that was repeatedly interrupted by protesters.
The nine-person panel approved by a 5-4 vote setting the preliminary range for rent increases on leases signed between October 1 and September 30, 2024, at 2 to 5% for a one-year deal and 4 to 7% for a two-year agreement.
The City Hall-controlled board set the range as New York’s housing shortage and crisis worsens seemingly by the month with market-rate rents continuing to break records — new leases in March averaged $4,100 a month in Manhattan — and it came shortly after attempts to overhaul and speed how New York builds homes and apartments statewide fell apart in Albany.
In an extraordinary move, late Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams — who has the power to appoint all nine members — issued a statement rebuking the board for considering rent increases of potentially 7%.
“I want to be clear that a seven-percent rent increase is clearly beyond what renters can afford and what I feel is appropriate this year,” Hizzoner said.
“I recognize that property owners face growing challenges maintaining their buildings and accessing financing to make repairs; at the same time, we simply cannot put tenants in a position where they can’t afford to make rent.”
Board members will meet again on June 21 to set the final rates, following a slew of sure-to-be contentious public meetings across the five boroughs over the intervening weeks.
The proceedings came to a halt for about 10 minutes began when protestors — including at least three city council members, Councilman Chi Osse (D-Brooklyn) and Councilwomen Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) and Tiffany Caban (D-Queens) — crashed the stage and took the microphones from the table where the rent board was sitting.
The Rent Board then attempted to move ahead with the meeting as demonstrators circled around the table as they spoke, loudly demanding that members back a reduction in rents despite inflation and soaring energy prices.
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“Open your books,” yelled one protestor into a microphone she grabbed off the table as she marked with the lawmakers and a couple of dozen demonstrators in the picket line around the Rent Board.
The sole security guard was overmatched.
The bid for a rent freeze was rejected by a vote of 2-7; as was a bid by landlords to increase rents by as much as 14% for a two-year lease.
If the RGB enacts the top end of the range approved — the 5% hike on one-year leases would be the steepest increase since 1996, while a 7% rise for two-year deals would be the biggest increase since 2013.
Last year, the Rent Board approved hikes of 3.25% and 5% for one and two-year agreements respectively.
Protestors gathered outside the nighttime Rent Guidelines Board meeting before it got underway at the Cooper Union’s Great Hall, furious over an analysis released by the RGB’s staff indicated that soaring fuel costs and inflation could support a rent hike of as much as 15.75 percent for two-year leases.
“It’s just atrocious to propose double-digit increases,” said one of the protestors, Cheryl, an Inwood resident, who declined to give her last name.
“People’s incomes aren’t going up and you’re going to really really risk more homelessness, more evictions. This isn’t right.”
