After hours of tense, deeply personal debate between landlords, tenants and lawmakers, the Ithaca Common Council voted to opt into new statewide tenant protections Wednesday night.
The law, referred to as “good cause" eviction, limits rent hikes and automatically gives tenants who have followed their lease and paid rent the option to renew under most circumstances. The New York State Legislature passed the law earlier this year for New York City, but gave upstate communities the ability to opt in.
After a month of charged public testimony from landlords and tenants, both groups crowded into city hall Wednesday night to make their final pleas.
During a public hearing on the law, co-chair of the Ithaca Tenants Union, Katie Sims, said while volunteering at the union’s hotline, they found some tenants felt they couldn’t ask landlords for necessary repairs because their leases might not be renewed.
“We do have an on-paper right to a habitable environment. We have, on paper, protections against harassment,” Sims said. “But it can be so hard to enforce it without good cause.”
Ithaca resident Michelle Jones said rising rent costs are driving Black and brown people out of the city, despite the city’s supposed commitment to diversity.
“This is supposed to be a town of enlightened, open-minded, liberal people. I'm finding that to be less and less true. You've got 75% of the people sitting in this county, in this town, who are renters, and yet they have to fight to be treated like decent citizens.”
The state law allows municipalities to tailor some aspects of good cause to suit their needs. For example, small landlords are exempt from the law, but municipalities can set their own definition of a small landlord.
In New York City, a small landlord is defined as someone with less than 10 rentals in their portfolio. In the city of Ithaca’s version, a small landlord is someone with just one rental property.
Some landlords argued that the city should have gone with the state’s initial definition, saying the legal fees associated with non-renewal would be too much for those with smaller portfolios.
Brent Katzmann of the Ithaca Board of Realtors said those fees would be passed on to tenants.
“Landlords should be expected to begin reserving capital in order to be able to fund the $2,000 to $5,000 in expected legal expenses to justify a legitimate change of rent or tenancy,” he said. “Sources of capital would have to come either from increases in rent, or the reduction in maintenance or planned improvements, neither of which seem beneficial to tenants.”
Landlord Anita Graf asked the common council to take more time to consult with landlords and tenants.
“I would just like to say that for many of us, a lot of these laws have come quickly as a surprise. We've been blindsided.”
But for some council members and tenants’ rights advocates, the legislation has been a long time coming.
Mayor Robert Cantelmo, who voted for the proposal, said good cause has been in the works since August 2021.
“The law does one thing. It gives people the right to remain in their homes if they are upholding their end of a contract,” he said.
Alderperson Tiffany Kumar also voted for the law. She said extreme weather and a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing municipalities to effectively criminalize unsheltered homelessness have made losing housing incredibly dangerous.
“The question before us is human rights versus property rights,” Kumar said. “Not just property rights, unlimited property rights. How could you care about property more than people?”
Alderperson Margaret Fabrizio was one of two council members who voted against the law. She said the council needed more time to consider the impacts of good cause and that it disproportionately impacted landlords with smaller portfolios.
“We could make a piece of legislation that fits Ithaca well. Instead, we are taking a piece of legislation that was created for New York City, that was not intended to put undue burden on small property owners, and we are in fact doing that.”
Ithaca’s good-cause law has a carveout for apartments built after 2009 for the next 30 years. That exemption was created by the state, not the city, and drew criticism from both sides of the debate.
Alderperson Ducson Nguyen said despite the legislation’s flaws, he believed it would help a significant number of renters.
“It leaves massive carve outs. That’s the main criticism I have of it. But for my part, it’s not sufficient for us to not implement these protections and protect the tenants that we can,” he said.
Alderperson David Shapiro also voted against the legislation. He said the council generally acts alarmingly quickly on new legislation and that good cause was an example of that.
“The rush to put things through, I think creates division because it creates a lot of passion for people to make sure they get their moments to express their view on what's important to them,” he said.
The law passed by a vote of 8-2. Ithaca is now the fourth city in upstate New York to opt in following Albany, Kingston and Poughkeepsie.
