Housing Board Set To Raise Rents by 2%, to 7.5%

The annual vote to raise rents on the city's 1 million rent stabilized apartments could turn ugly again this year, with tenant activists opposing rent hikes and landlords saying the proposed increases are not high enough to cover rising costs.

At its meeting tonight, the Rent Guidelines Board is expected to raise rents between 2% and 4.5% on rent stabilized housing with one-year leases, and between 4% and 7.5% on two-year leases.

Several elected officials, including the speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, and the city comptroller, William Thompson Jr., have called for a freeze on rent increases or a minimal hike. The increases would begin October 1.

An executive vice president of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents landlords, Jack Freund, said the association is calling for rents to rise at least 5% for one-year leases and 9% for two-year leases to keep pace with cost increases.

The Rent Guidelines Board found operating costs for landlords rose 5.1% between April 2006 and April 2007, Mr. Freund said.

"If you want to save the rental housing that is affordable, then you need to start providing reasonable rent increases so people can maintain property and aren't tempted by the for-sale market," he said.

A rent regulation coordinator with the Tenants and Neighbors Coalition, Natasha Winegar, said the city is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. She blamed rising rents for driving tenants from their apartments.

"We believe the board helped cause this crisis," she said.

Last year, tenant activists shut down a Rent Guidelines Board meeting for three hours by pounding bongo drums, shaking noisemakers, singing, and shouting. There will be a metal detector and heightened security at tonight's meeting.

"We've never had such a rowdy crowd before," the executive director of the board, Andrew McLaughlin, said. "Last year was hopefully an aberration."