Council Could Benefit on Rent As It Seeks Control of Board

The City Council's efforts to gain more control over the board that oversees the city's rent-stabilized apartments stand to benefit Speaker Christine Quinn and the other council members who pay below-market rents for their apartments.

Critics of rent regulation say that if the council wins its fight and is allowed to confirm all mayoral appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board, the nine-member panel that sets annual rent increases for almost 1 million rent-regulated apartments in the city, the system would become overly politicized and qualified candidates would be reluctant to sit on the board.

RELATED: Quinn's Rent.

Ms. Quinn, a likely candidate for mayor who has lived in a one-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment in Chelsea since 1992, is leading the council's charge. She is backing a bill in the state Legislature that would restructure the board and require council approval of board members, deny rent increases for one year for any apartment with serious violations, and require the use of a landlord's income and expense information in determining whether a rent increase is warranted.

Ms. Quinn earns $141,000 from the council and pays roughly $1,600 a month for her apartment, which she shares with her partner, Kim Catullo, a corporate lawyer, and is located on West 24th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues. Ms. Catullo's legal work likely puts the couple's combined household annual income at well above $300,000.

Ms. Quinn also owns half of a four-bedroom home in Ocean Grove, N.J., that is worth more than $500,000, according to her latest financial disclosure report on file with the city's Conflicts of Interest Board.

A survey by The New York Sun found that at least two other council members from Manhattan live in rent-stabilized apartments. Robert Jackson, who represents West Harlem, lives in a rent-stabilized apartment he has occupied for more than three decades. He declined to say how much he pays in monthly rent, saying that it is his "personal business." Miguel Martinez lives in a two-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in Inwood, where he pays about $1,300 a month in rent.

At least two others, Thomas White of Queens and Alan Gerson, who represents Lower Manhattan, live in "affordable" housing developments that are part of the state's Mitchell-Lama program for middle-income residents.

Council member Daniel Garodnick, who represents Midtown East and parts of the Upper East Side, grew up in a rent-stabilized apartment in Peter Cooper Village but now rents a market-rate apartment.

Aides to two council members, Helen Foster, who represent parts of the Bronx, and Inez Dickens, who represents parts of Harlem, would not disclose to the Sun whether the officials live in rent-stabilized housing.

Ms. Dickens is a partial owner of four residential apartment buildings that she inherited, according to her most recent financial disclosure report on file with the city's Conflicts of Interest Board. The buildings are worth more than $500,000 each, according to the report.

A professor at Baruch College and an assistant secretary for policy development at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Reagan administration, Emanuel Savas, said the council "absolutely" is acting in its self-interest in trying to gain more control over the Rent Guidelines Board.

Mr. Savas doesn't think the council should have any say over setting rents in the city, he said. He argues that "markets are fairer than elected officials."

He doesn't object to Ms. Quinn and other elected officials living in rent-stabilized apartments, because he said the system doesn't take into account the income of a renter in rent-stabilized apartments.

"The laws are so foolish as to have some apartments be rented at below-market rents. It's a failure of the laws rather than the people who take advantage of it," he said.

The director of government affairs for the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents building owners, Frank Ricci, said that Ms. Quinn and her partner don't really need rent protection based on their salary, but he said he didn't blame them for living in a rent-stabilized apartment.

"The problem is the system. The system is there and these people, they go and rent the apartment," he said.

His association favors an unconstrained rental market with no restrictions on the rents that landlords can charge tenants, but he said that he would prefer the current system, where the Rent Guidelines Board sets annual rent increases, to one run by the council, which he said would be prone to political pressures and pandering to tenants.

In a letter that Ms. Quinn wrote to the Rent Guidelines Board in June, she said that the board's rent increases were changing the character of the city. Proponents of rent control say that below-market rents ensure that the city is home to lower-income residents and that Manhattan, in particular, does not become an island where only the wealthy can afford to live. A spokesman for Ms. Quinn declined to comment.

Ms. Quinn is among the several politicians in the city who are gaining attention for living in stabilized apartments. The New York Times recently reported on Rep. Charles Rangel's use of four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem; he announced he was giving up one of the apartments, which had reportedly been used as an office. The Sun has reported on Governor Paterson's $1,250-a-month two-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in Harlem. The governor and his wife also have a home in upstate New York and access to the Executive Mansion in Albany.