Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Housing Committee Chair Vito Lopez have announced expected Assembly action on a nine-bill package addressing the affordable housing crisis, particularly in New York City and surrounding suburbs. The legislation is aimed at protecting tenants from being priced out of their homes through insufficient rent regulation laws and an unstable state housing market.

Flanked by sponsors of the bills and members of tenant advocacy groups, Silver and Lopez held an afternoon news conference to bring attention to the measures and call on the Senate to bring long overdue relief to New York City communities suffering from an affordable housing shortage.

Standing in support of the legislative package were ACORN Executive Director Bertha Lewis; Ramona Santana, a tenant leader with the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition; Maria Davila, a leader with Housing Here and Now and an ACORN member; Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizen Council members Angela Battaglia and Carmen Bonilla; North Bushwick Residents Association members Maritza Davila and Sonya Rivera; and Brooklyn Unidos members Maria Viera and Elizabeth Torres.

Silver noted that in addition to the package slated for floor action later today, two additional bills passed earlier this year.

“The Assembly Majority understands the challenges families face in these trying economic times. New York City has faced an ongoing affordable housing crisis which is being exacerbated by rising food, fuel and construction costs. Unless we take action now to preserve the rent regulation system, housing in the City of New York will be too expensive for the firefighters, police officers and teachers and others upon whom we depend,” said Silver (D-Manhattan).

“Residents of New York State continue to face an affordable housing crisis. We need to preserve as much affordable housing as possible, as well as build new housing. Keeping this issue in the forefront will also help us fight the loss of critical affordable housing units during these difficult economic times” said Lopez (D-Brooklyn). “The Assembly is committed to working for rent regulation in order to protect tenants and stabilize our working class neighborhoods.

“Between a weakening economy and skyrocketing rents, working families are being priced out and pushed out of New York City. Every year more than 10,000 tenants lose their homes to vacancy decontrol. Thousands more are forced out by luxury decontrol, owner occupancy or landlord harassment. This package is critically important to stemming the loss of affordable housing in our state and will help tens of thousands of New Yorkers keep their homes. We applaud Speaker Silver, Assemblymember Lopez and the entire Assembly Democratic conference for their leadership on this critical issue for working families,” said Lewis.

Rent regulation limits the rate of rent increases and the method, manner and the grounds for eviction and requires services to be maintained. The shortage of affordable housing in New York City, in the suburban counties of Westchester, Nassau, and Rockland and in many other areas of the state has heightened the affordable housing crisis. According to housing advocates, over 300,000 rent stabilized apartments have been decontrolled through vacancy and this number is accelerating each year.

To ensure rents remain at an affordable level and further protect New York’s tenants, legislation (A.2894) sponsored by Lopez would reduce the percentage by which rent may be increased upon vacancy from twenty percent to ten percent and limit the number of allowable increases to only once per year.

The Assembly’s affordable housing plan would implement a host of measures to:

Keep affordable units in the rent regulatory system by ending the practice of “high rent” vacancy decontrol, which allows landlords to remove apartments whose regulated rent exceeds $2,000 permanently from state rent and eviction regulation. The measure (A.7416-A/Rosenthal) would keep apartments protected under rent stabilization or rent control when vacated so that there isn’t a steady erosion of units affordable to middle income people;

Substantially increase the amount of civil penalties the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) could impose on landlords who harass tenants or who violate orders of DHCR related to rent-regulated housing (A.10823/Silver);

Limit a building owner’s ability to recover a rent-regulated apartment for personal use (A.799/Lopez);

Apply an adjustment for inflation to the rent and income deregulation thresholds for luxury accommodations, and provide for similar periodic annual adjustments in the future (A.10647/Bing);

Disallow the practice of increasing previously preferential rent upon lease renewal (A.10055-A/Jeffries);

Amend the Local Emergency Housing Rent Control Act by removing the provision that prohibits New York City from strengthening rent regulation laws to provide more comprehensive coverage than provided by state laws (A.4069/Lopez)/(S.1673/Krueger);

Permit the declaration of an emergency pursuant to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA) for rental housing accommodations located in buildings covered by a project based assistance contract pursuant to Section 8 of the US housing act of 1937 (A.5677/Lopez);

Extend the length of time over which major capital improvement (MCI) expenses may be recovered and require that rent surcharges authorized for MCIs shall cease when the cost of the improvement has been recovered (A.6510/O’Donnell);

Protect tenants in Mitchell-Lama developments which become subject to Rent Stabilization or the EPTA by prohibiting an owner from applying for a rent increase based on unique and peculiar circumstances when a project withdraws from this program (A.352/Bing) Passed Assembly 1/29/08; and

Provide for the appointment of three alternates on rent guideline boards; one alternate shall represent tenants, one shall represent owners of property and one shall be a public representative (A.4501/Brodsky) Passed Assembly 3/3/08.

“The Assembly Majority is, as always, leading the fight for affordable, safe housing for New York’s working families,” said Silver. “By preserving and expanding our state’s rent regulations we can keep housing affordable and accessible and help our families make ends meet. Action on these measures is a very important step in keeping hard working people living and working in New York. We remain committed to protecting tenants and ensuring that middle-class families are not priced out of their communities.”