ALBANY — Advocates and progressive lawmakers are renewing their push for legislation that would grant New York renters more protections as Gov. Hochul, Mayor Adams and other officials ramp up rhetoric about rezoning and building more affordable housing in the Empire State.
The governor has vowed to unveil a “bold and audacious” housing agenda in her State of the State address next month when she will lay out her policy priorities for the upcoming legislative session and the rest of her four-year term in office.
Housing rights groups are petitioning the governor to couple her call for building more units, an often slow and cumbersome process, with a slate of bills that would help keep tenants in their apartments amid rising rents and provide assistance to those facing the frightening possibility of homelessness.
“There’s an immediacy and an urgency to the crisis that can’t be solved by lifting and shifting zoning restrictions,” Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All, told the Daily News. “We need protections from price gouging and deep investments in making housing affordable. I don’t think you can solve the state’s housing problems without regulations and money and those are the two things Hochul doesn’t want to touch.”
The “Our Homes, Our Power” package includes “good cause” eviction, a long-sought piece of legislation that would give tenants a defense against unwarranted evictions and the right to challenge unreasonable rent increases, defined as more than 3% or 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index.
It would be up to a judge to determine if the rent increase is justified. While it does not guarantee a renewal, supporters argue it gives tenants more leverage in negotiating leases.
The state’s powerful and deep-pocketed real estate industry opposes the measure, which is often portrayed by critics as a form of universal rent control.
“Building housing without tenant protections is no solution,” Michael McKee, the treasurer of Tenants PAC, told the Daily News. “I don’t think enabling private developers to just build more market rate housing is going to solve our problem.”
The fight over the bill, first introduced by Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) in 2019, has been one of the most intense battles in Albany in recent years but supporters say the measure will be a key element of any housing package going through the Democrat-led Legislature.
“The governor has indicated that she intends to roll up her sleeves and deal with the housing crisis this session. That’s welcome news,” said Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-Queens). “We need to make it abundantly clear, however, that any housing plan that doesn’t keep my neighbors in their homes is incomplete. Good cause has to be the floor for negotiations.”
Another tenet of the package is the Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would give renters a priority chance to buy their building from their landlord, and the Housing Access Voucher program to help homeless and low-income people pay for housing.
It also includes a bill creating a statewide agency with the power to build and preserve high-quality, affordable housing and another overhauling the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, which determines rental rates for rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments.
Studies have shown that the majority of New Yorkers who lost income during the COVID pandemic were low-income workers and those already living in poverty, predominately New Yorkers of color.
The Robin Hood Foundation analysis from January found 25% of Black and Latino New Yorkers reported owing back rent or being unable to make a rent payment, compared to one in 10 white city residents.
Hochul on Thursday would not say whether good cause or the other progressive backed measures would be part of her housing push as the legislative session approaches.
“We’ll be having conversations with everyone affected by this,” the governor said. “It’s a broad group of people. We always will listen, we’ll always hear people’s concerns and address them in a way that fits into the larger story of us having to be able to build the housing, create the housing.
“We have so much that’s a part of this, but we’ll certainly be listening to the advocates as we head into the process as well.”
