Photo by Scott Matthews.
January 4, 2016 Weather: Partly cloudy, with a high of 31 degrees.
Notices:
Lots of free music, an Al Roker appearance and many more events are on our calendar.
Want to speak your mind about a local issue? The full community board meets Tuesday. Here’s some background and the agenda.
Reminder: Kindergarten applications are due January 15.
Heads-up to shutterbugs: we’ll be launching a new photo contest with a special theme later today.
News:
An ex-convict is accused of raping a woman in a hotel room last week: “Farhan Khan, 27, of Franklin Square, LI, allegedly accosted the 35-year-old woman in a room at the Comfort Inn on West 71st Street just steps from Central Park at around 3 a.m. on Dec. 30, sources said.”
The state is set to hike rents on rent-controlled tenants by up to 9.6% over two years.
A photographer has been taking pictures of mom and pop shops in NYC before they disappear.
Traffic deaths in NYC fell for the second straight year, and are at historic lows. “The gains come after the installation of 140 speed cameras near schools, the lowering of the city speed limit to 25 miles per hour, and ramped-up traffic enforcement in some, though not by any means all, police precincts.”
I read this article in the NY Times about rent control over the weekend.
These people have been living decades in apartments with ridiculously low rents. Now they’re complaining that their rents are bumping up a bit.
I see Linda Rosenthal is to the rescue trying to hustle some votes.
The whole situation is pathetic. Only in NYC.
@ Shamir…No, it’s not pathetic!!!!!! What’s pathetic is that you and your ilk are jealous you weren’t around when these were plentiful! Same with rent stabilization! Too bad!!! I never lived in a house because never could afford one and you don’t see me bashing people who can!
Interesting how you fixate on, what you consider to be, a whole pathetic situation.
And manage to disparage NYC in the same breath.
There is a myth here about ridiculously low rents. We’ve a rent controlled apartment and our current rent is over $3000. This rent hike is one more step in removing the middle class from NYC.
Last time I paid rent, it was a rent-stabilized $1750/month for an 800sqft 1 bedroom in a prewar doorman in Greenwich Village. That was in 1989.
$3000/month sounds like a pretty good deal.
How large is your apartment and what would the market-rate be? $3,000/month is solidly upper class is most of the country.
Does anyone have specific numbers on the rent increase? I’ve heard it’s as little as $5 or 10 per month. Can’t feel too sorry for these folks if that’s the case
That’s the Propoganda Campaign.
Rent control increases are determined by a complex formula that, at its core, take into account the cost of heating, maintenance, labor, etc. In other words, data and numbers.
The result is a 9.6% increase over two years.
Contrast this with Rent Stabilization, whose rental increases are a political decision determined by the de Blasio-packed RGB board. The result? A 0% increase.
It may take another 100 years, but I do believe and hope that one day, we will switch to a voucher system that provides rental assistance to the needy, as opposed to an 80-year old failed social experiment that has, in every city it has been tried, increased the cost of housing and lowered the availability of affordable options.
The issue of course is that Rent Stabilization benefits -in Manhattan alone – fifty thousand 1-percenters. Do you think they would vote to help the poor, as opposed to themselves?
“…an 80-year old failed social experiment that has, in every city it has been tried, increased the cost of housing and lowered the availability of affordable options.” – PK
Except that is has LOWERED the cost of housing and INCREASED the availability of affordable options.
Could it be that you are interested in describing just your situation as the most important one in NYC?
Dannyboy,
If you have evidence that rent controls (the generic term) increases the quality and quantity of housing available, please present it.
93% of economists – including Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman – would disagree with you.
NYC has been in an official housing emergency for DECADES. If rent controls work, why has the situation never improved?
Why would you – or any compassionate person – prefer a system that gives 50 thousand apartments in Manhattan to the wealthy, as opposed to providing for the poor and homeless?
Can you imagine if we had this system for food stamps? You would get food stamps depending on if you applied in the 70’s or 80’s, regardless of actual need. If you were a doctor, lawyer or investment banker – no matter, you get to keep them. You could hand down this perpetual food stamp privilege – a scarce resource – to your children, all the while the poor and homeless go hungry.
To support rent controls in their current form is equivalent to denying global warming. You are free to believe what you wish, but educated people are equally free to laugh at the absurdity of it, utilizing facts, figures and data. I sincerely hope one day we have a truly just and compassionate society – one that cares for the disadvantaged of our city with rent vouchers, as opposed to our current rent control/stabilized system, which rewards the lucky and well connected instead.
You make sense but don’t confuse dannyboy with the facts. He’s already made up his mind.
The facts are that NYC does have a Voucher System for Housing that doesn’t work because the landlords won’t accept the vouchers. That is fact. Read a newspaper!
This “humanitarian urge” to provide the poor with Vouchers to replace rent regulated tenants is transparent greed. This way more rents can be gauged and more homeless created.
Don’t you ever get sick and tired of taking things away from people for yourselves?
This is the second time (in two times up) that you havemisrepresented (to be polite) the facts:
1. “The issue of course is that Rent Stabilization benefits -in Manhattan alone – fifty thousand 1-percenters. Do you think they would vote to help the poor, as opposed to themselves?”
2. “Why would you – or any compassionate person – prefer a system that gives 50 thousand apartments in Manhattan to the wealthy, as opposed to providing for the poor and homeless?”
PK,you’ve got to read the article before attempting to propogandize by repeating the same misinformation over and over.
Here is what it really said:
1. “Stabilized apartments number more than one million and account for almost half of the city’s housing stock.”
2.”But the median household income for rent-stabilized tenants was $40,600, while that of rent-controlled tenants was $29,000.”
So it is actually you who are voting against the poor and are displacing the poor and creating the homeless.
I hope you can believe yourself, otherwise I can’t imagine how you could sleep at night.
@PK… I’m one of the rent stabilized tenants and to be Very, Very sure…. I’m NOT one of the 1% ers!!! Nor are the many people I know who are in rent stabilized or controlled apts!!! We have gotten these apts when the majority of housing was stabilized. Why should we be punished by deregulation for being here when it was the norm???!!!! And I have no idea where you get your way off the mark statistics!!!! The 1% DO NOT have these apts. or they are very far and few between!
Nathan, providing stable rents in a million apartments to our NYC neighbors does provide them housing.
Quit getting some economist to say that ain’t so.
@dannyboy “Regulating rents lowers rents. Remove the price controls and prices rise. Agree?”
Yes, price caps do, in fact, cap prices. They also create shortages. Shortages mean prices are higher for those of us who pay market rate.
So the question is whether housing prices are lowered in aggregate or not. What’s the net benefit of rent regulation? Here’s a hint: it’s negative.
1. Regulating rents lowers rents. Remove the price controls and prices rise. Agree?
2. I support Rent Regulation for the millions. Deal with the 50 thousand using Vacancy Decontrol. Agree?
Any rational person would see that the stability of housing and population is the primary resource of NYC.
Bringing in Global Warming and your 93% of economists citations just clarified your misinformation. Thanks for sharing.
dannyboy, to answer your points:
1. Yes, half the city’s apartments are regulated in some way. And yet, the city as a whole is still so unaffordable we are in a decades long, official housing emergency. Seems like rent controls don’t make the city affordable then, right?
2. The median income is just that- a median. It does not take away from the the fact that 50 thousand apartments are currently rent stabilized and being rented to the 1 percent in Manhattan. Why would you support giving a scarce resource like this to the wealthy?
Contrary to your assumption, I won’t get a cheaper rent from the abolishing of rent controls (I don’t rent in NYC). What I do gain is seeing an evidence based, just system help those in need, and not the privileged.
If you are someone of limited income, you will be helped. If you are not, the scarce housing resources will be utilized to provide more supply to everyone else. Why would any rational person disapprove of this?
If you have evidence – economic, peer-reviewed, and data based evidence – that rent controls increase the supply of affordable housing, then please provide it. But again, Nobel prize winning economists from both the left and right haven’t found any.
You’ve hit the nail on the head.
As far as I know the only big cities left that have rent control/stabilization laws are NYC and San Francisco.
It’s no coincidence that both cities also have perennial housing shortages and unaffordability issues.
Boston did away with its rent laws a decade or so ago and the mass homelessness and dislocation predicted by housing advocates never materialized.
As you’ve stated NYC’s rent laws are not guided by any rational economic analysis but rather by political pandering by unscrupulous politicians like DeBlasio and Linda Rosenthal.
Tring to confuse the cause with the effect, are we?
It is precisely because NYC and SF have housing shortages that Rent Regulation is necessary.
Nope. Literally every economist would tell you the opposite is true. Vouchers (like Section 8) would make for a better system.
@Bruce, the law of supply and demand doesn’t cease to apply when there’s a supply shortage. It explains why prices are high: lack of supply. Rent regulation exacerbates the problem for those of us not fortunate to live in rent regulated apartments. This is perfectly consistent with the law of supply and demand.
a popular myth: that “every economist” is against some form of rent regulation. housing in NYC has a limited supply; the abstract laws of supply and demand don’t apply. it’s pretty easy to find economists who think this is one way to address the issue of gentrification, within a broader context.
Another guy who loves to believe men who are paid for their opinion. Yikes!
In the real world however, the NYC Voucher System failed.
The Store Front II book looks absolutely fantastic and should be required reading for all of us who love NY. My New, New Year’s resolution is to patronize as many of these businesses as possible before they are all gone!
23 comments on your pittance rent and none on the woman who was raped and almost killed??? I know a great place on 71st right near CPW you should all move to.
Indigence feel good to you?