Paterson’s Rent
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
So Governor Paterson reckons that his $1,250 a month rent-stabilized two-bedroom Manhattan apartment is “within the spirit of the law.” Even though he and his wife earned a combined $270,000 last year, even though he owns a house in Guilderland upstate, and even though he already has a taxpayer subsidized dwelling, the 40-room governor’s mansion in Albany. And even though the market rate for an apartment in his Manhattan building, which has 24-hour doorman service, is $2,600 a month.
Curious about this law’s spirit, we went to read it. The New York City Rent Stabilization Law of 1969 begins: “The council hereby finds that a serious public emergency continues to exist in the housing of a considerable number of persons within the city of New York.” It speaks of “an acute housing shortage” and a “grave emergency.” It states that a “transition from regulation to a normal market of free bargaining between landlord and tenant” is “the objective of state and city policy.”
What housing emergency exists for a man with three houses? The letter of the law is something that could be discussed, but how is the governor’s apartment within the spirit of the law? If there really is a “serious public emergency,” an “acute housing shortage,” and a “grave emergency,” then there must be people out there with a better claim to a rent-stabilized apartment than Mr. Paterson. They may not have access to two other houses outside the city, or they may have lower income.
If the objective of state policy is indeed to facilitate a “transition from regulation to a normal market of free bargaining between landlord and tenant,” the most effective step Mr. Paterson could take to signal his support for that objective — stated in the law as policy — would be to make his own transition to a market-based rent. And then to change the letter of the law so that it matches the law’s spirit.
For once an “emergency” has lasted for 40 years, or an intent to “transition” has been claimed for 40 years without ever happening, the “emergency” starts to look a lot like the emergency powers assumed by socialist dictators — not an emergency at all, just an excuse for the government to exert its powers against property owners on behalf of a lucky few renters, one of whom is our governor.
