Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Passport
  • Support WSKG
Donate
  • Donate
  • logo
  • logo
  • Donate
  • Home
  • News
  • TV
  • Radio
  • Schedules
  • Events
  • Arts
  • Education
  • History
  • Science
  • Donate
  • More
    • About
    • Contact Us
    • Passport
    • Support WSKG

WSKG - Local news and arts, broadcasting NPR radio and PBS TV.

WSKG thanks our sponsors...
  • Donate your vehicle to support WSKG

WSKG (https://wskg.org/news/new-york-enacts-historic-tenant-protections/)

  • Donate
  • Home
  • News
  • TV
  • Radio
  • Schedules
  • Events
  • Arts
  • Education
  • History
  • Science
Listen Live WSKG
Listen Live WSKG Classical

Watch Live WSKG TV
Watch Live PBS Kids
Learn at Home
Covid-19 information

New York Enacts Historic Tenant Protections

By Karen DeWitt | June 15, 2019
More
  • More on binghamton
  • Subscribe to binghamton

ALBANY, NY (WSKG) – In what supporters called a “watershed moment,” the New York Legislature on Friday approved and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed what Democratic lawmakers and tenant groups say are the strongest tenant protections in a generation.

Photo by Karen DeWitt.

Tenants cheered, some chanting “thank you” and others crying, as Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins arrived at a victory rally organized by tenants’ groups just before the vote took place.

Stewart-Cousins credited the success to her close working relationship with Heastie, whom she referred to as her “wonder twin,” referencing a quote in a New York Times article from earlier in the session.

In a break from past protocol in Albany, the Legislature worked out the deals of the tenant protection bills themselves, without the input of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo had cast doubt on the newly Democratic-led Senate’s ability to approve the bills, and said he did not plan to become involved in the talks.

The bills renew and strengthen New York City’s rent regulations and extend tenant protections to the rest of the state.

It also ends the more than 20-year-old rule known as vacancy decontrol. That allowed landlords to place a rent-stabilized apartment on the free market for a higher rate once a certain threshold of monthly rent was reached, based on yearly increases set by a state board. Under vacancy decontrol, 300,000 rent-regulated units were removed from the system.

The measures also limit the ability of landlords to raise rents when they make improvements to apartments. A previous 6% increase will now be capped at 2%.

The bills also extend tenant protections to the entire state, making it more difficult for landlords to evict tenants.

And the measures allow municipalities that don’t have rent regulation — in parts of Long Island, the Hudson Valley and all of upstate — to opt in to a rent-regulated system.

Heastie said it represents a turning point.

“We’ll begin to reverse the tide of the last 25 years of the landlords having the advantage,” Heastie said, “to having people not be priced out of their homes, pushed out of their homes, threatened out of their homes.”

Later, in remarks on the Senate floor, Stewart-Cousins, who grew up in public housing, said she would not be who she is today if not for the stability of rent protections. She said she has sponsored some of the bills passed this year ever since she first came to the Senate 12 years ago. And she sees the vote as a signal of an even greater change.

“Yes, the pendulum is swinging,” she said. “Yes, it’s been swinging in one direction for 40 years. Guess what? We’ve got to begin to address the fact that unless we as a Legislature show a commitment to the things that matter to people, none of us, no matter how long we stay here, will feel that we have succeeded.”

Democrats widely back the measures, but most Republicans are opposed. Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick, a GOP member from Long Island said that the rollbacks of the vacancy decontrol and improvement incentives for landlords are a “catastrophe in the making.”

He predicted that landlords will lack incentive to build affordable housing for poorer tenants or to install new appliances and make other upgrades in existing apartments.

“I’m just very concerned that we are going to make a bad situation even worse in an effort to protect tenants,” Fitzpatrick said.

“We could see a return to the bad old days where people abandon their properties,” he said.

The bills were approved one day before the current rent regulations were set to expire. It will be the last time lawmakers face that kind of deadline pressure on rent rules; the new measures make the changes permanent.

Cuomo immediately signed the bills.

“I’m confident the measure passed today is the strongest possible set of reforms that the Legislature was able to pass and are a major step forward for tenants across New York,” he said in a statement.

Recent Posts

  • NY-22 Judge Grants Oneida County BOE Extension, Delaying Update

    BINGHAMTON, NY (WSKG) — Results in the election lawsuit over New York’s 22nd Congressional seat will take a few more days than initially expected. The Oswego County Supreme Court justice presiding over the case granted a two-day extension to the Oneida County Board of Elections, which was set to report corrected vote counts this Wednesday.

  • Lawmakers Say Residents In State Run Homes For Should Have WiFi

    ALBANY, NY (WSKG) - Several State Senators and Assembly members say they were surprised to learn that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration does not provide Internet access to people living in state run groups homes and other congregant settings, and they want that fixed immediately. Senator James Skoufis, the chair of the Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, says  two of his constituents alerted him to the lack of Wi-Fi at the state-run group homes .

  • Senator Hints At Subpoenas If New York Doesn’t Supply Key Nursing Home Death Numbers

    ALBANY, NY (WSKG) - The State Senate Chair of the Committee on Investigations is threatening to subpoena Governor Andrew Cuomo’s health commissioner, if he does not provide data on how many nursing home residents died in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic surge in New York last spring. Senator James Skoufis says he and other lawmakers have been seeking the data for months now, only to be told by Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker that they are still compiling the numbers.

  • Cuomo Announces Effort To Strengthen Fairness And Equity In Vaccine Distribution

    ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Governor Andrew Cuomo says the state is expanding its deployment of community vaccination kits to strengthen fairness and equity in the distribution process for COVID-19 vaccines. The governor made the announcement in Brooklyn on Saturday, noting that the state recently piloted the deployment kits to several senior housing developments in New York City.

  • New York Allows Resumption Of Riskier High School Sports

    ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - There is some hope for area students and families who would like to see New York state again allow high school sports deemed ‘higher-risk’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as football, basketball, ice hockey, wrestling, volleyball and competitive cheer. On Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration issued new guidance for sports and recreation activities in schools, and it says that as of February 1, participants in higher risk sports and recreation activities can take part in those sports “as permitted by the respective local health authorities.” Among the factors the state says local health officials should consider is whether there has been a more transmissible variant of COVID-19 identified in the area, and local rates of COVID-19 transmission.

WSKG thanks our sponsors...

About WSKG

WSKG connects you to local and global news and the arts online, on the radio, and on TV. NPR and PBS affiliate.

Contact Us

email: WSKGcomment@wskg.org

phone: 607.729.0100

address: 601 Gates Road, Vestal, NY 13850

DONATE

Pay an underwriting invoice

  • WSKG
  • Arts
  • Education
  • Science
  • News
  • Radio
  • Schedule
  • TV
  • About
  • WSKG Staff
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Public Reports & Policies
  • Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
  • Protect My Public Media
FCC PUBLIC FILES
WSKG-FM
WSQX-FM
WSQG-FM
WSQE
WSQA
WSQC-FM
WSQN
WSKG-TV
WSKA
Disabled and need assistance with the online FCC public file?
Contact Gregory Keeler
WSKG
601 Gates Road
Vestal, New York 13850
607-729-0100
gkeeler@wskg.org

Stay Connected

Like Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on InstagramSubscribe via RSS

© Copyright 2021, WSKG

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑

Change Location
To find awesome listings near you!