The New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) was created in the late 1960s to determine rent adjustments for all New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments and subject to the Rent Stabilization Law. That law was established in part to protect tenants from “severe hardship” and “the uprooting of long-term tenants from their communities.” The law is supposed to help combat the city’s housing crisis by making sure some units remain affordable.
Yet, with the year-over-year rent increases set by the RGB — they are calling for a third increase in three years that will likely total about 10% or more — the board is not protecting tenants whatsoever. They are only serving real estate interests by maintaining and increasing landlord stability and profit. Considering that 71% of the rent-stabilized households are headed by people of color, it is hard to see the actions of the board as anything other than deeply classist, discriminatory, and unjust.
The RGB has become a rubber stamp for rent increases. By law, the board must consider a number of data points before it votes, including information relevant to both landlords and tenants, such as operating costs and vacancy rates, respectively. However, in the history of RGB voting, regardless of the data, the board has voted to increase rents in the overwhelming majority of years it has existed.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether a landlord’s Net Operating Income (NOI) or the Price Index of Operating Costs (PIOC) — terms used to assess the profitability of a property — are up or down that year, the board systematically votes to increase tenants’ rents.
Similarly, it doesn’t seem to matter whether tenants are facing unprecedented financial hardship, the board votes to increase their rents. According to recent data, nearly 20% of New Yorkers are currently living in poverty and are food insecure; wages are down; rents in NYC are up 965% since 1968; and the city’s housing supply and vacancy rate is at one of the lowest in history, at 1.4%: yet the RGB is again calling for an increase.
It’s no wonder the RGB has earned the nickname the “Rent Increase Board.”
The impact of the RGB’s systemic rent increases on our clients and all New Yorkers is dire. Rent increases on already struggling tenants directly contribute to more evictions, homelessness, gentrification, food insecurity, and to the destabilizing and destruction of low-income households — primarily households of color.
To add insult to injury, the RGB brazenly pushes certain myths to excuse unjustifiable rent increases. Let’s clear up a few of those fallacies.
First, there is no proof that landlords use the money from rent increases to improve the quality of the rent-stabilized housing stock. When the Community Service Society polled rent-stabilized tenants about whether their rent went up and whether the landlord improved the building or apartment, only 32% of tenants whose rents rose saw any reinvestment in their housing.
The second fallacy, and one of Mayor Adams’ favorite talking points, is that Black and Brown landlords are hurting and won’t be able to pay their mortgages unless they are able to raise rents.
Small Black and Brown and immigrant landlords make up a minuscule percent of property owners of rent-stabilized units. Meanwhile, as noted above, the large majority of tenants in rent-stabilized homes — 71% — are people of color. It is senseless to neglect and ignore the needs of the majority to purportedly save small Black and Brown landlords.
In any case, a rent increase, even a cumulative increase of 10%, wouldn’t meaningfully help small landlords. To truly help them, the city could offer tax abatements or electric or gas discounts.
If the RGB really cared about communities of color, it would not be actively advocating for rent hikes at their expense to “help” the tiny minority of rent-stabilized owners. The suffering of tenants is not comparable to the negative consequences from business decisions for property owners, and this practice of treating the two as though they are equal is morally indefensible.
Instead of raising rents on a million households and 3 million people, the city should finally begin to administer the CityFHEPS reforms that they have been refusing to implement, or enact a slew of other options that would strengthen communities and keep New Yorkers housed. The RGB needs serious reform. To start, the board must vote for a rent rollback or a rent freeze in June.
Holder is chief attorney of the civil practice at the Legal Aid Society. Jones is president and chief executive officer of the Community Service Society of New York.
