R3 | REAL RENT REFORM CAMPAIGN

c/o Met Council on Housing | 339 Lafayette Street, #301 | New York, NY 10012

May 29, 2015

Speaker Carl E. Heastie
New York State Assembly
Albany, New York 12248

Dear Speaker Heastie:

Over a million families in rent-regulated housing are counting on you.
Affordable housing is at a crossroads. For the past two decades pro-landlord forces in state
government have relentlessly attacked the rent regulation laws that protect tenants and preserve the
affordable rental housing stock in New York City and three suburban counties.

3 already been converted to market-rate status

Hundreds of thousands of affordable apartmentsRhave
in the downstate metropolitan region.
With less than three weeks to go to the expiration of the rent and co-op protection laws, two of the
three men in the room are hostile to stronger rent and eviction protections, leaving you as tenants
only voice for preserving the rent-protected housing stock. The Senate Republicans are owned by
the New York City real estate industry, and Governor Cuomo has openly sided with landlords by
calling for a renewal of the rent laws in their current weakened form.
Unless we reverse course over the remaining days of the legislative session, we are proceeding on a
path that will lead to the inevitable death of this vital program.
With massive campaign contributions and illegal corruption schemes, pro-landlord forces have
secured deregulation amendments that have also placed a target on the backs of the remaining
rent-regulated tenants, encouraging predatory behavior by speculators who buy up rent-regulated
property and then aggressively harass tenants to empty the buildings.
Under your predecessors, the State Assembly consistently failed to stop these losses. In 1993 and
again in 2003, the Assembly was either outmaneuvered by or complicit with the Senate Republicans,
passing anti-tenant deregulation amendments. In 1997, it was even worse, when then-Speaker

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R3 | REAL RENT REFORM CAMPAIGN

c/o Met Council on Housing | 339 Lafayette Street, #301 | New York, NY 10012

Sheldon Silver agreed to a staggering array of unnecessary and damaging givebacks to the Senate
and Governor Pataki that essentially gutted the rent laws.
In the most recent sunset year, 2011, the rent laws were at least renewed with no further givebacks
to landlords, but the renewal bill left intact the loopholes that allow landlords to remove vacant
apartments from the system, as well as all the loopholes that allow landlords to jack regulated rents
up to the point that many tenants can no longer afford, forcing them to move. Despite attempts
by Governor Cuomo to portray the 2011 extender as a great victory for tenants, at best the bill
represented a draw with the real estate lobby, while allowing further deregulation of a devastating
number of affordable apartments. Another victory like 2011 and it will all be over.
As you are surely aware, a straight extender, or an extender with minor improvements, would
be a terrible defeat for affordable housing. In particular, failure to repeal Vacancy Deregulation
amendments would cause the inevitable loss over the next few years of the largest affordable
housing stock in the state.

R3 is not much we can do, the Senate will not

Some Assembly Democrats are telling tenants, There
pass these bills, and we have limited leverage. Waving the white flag of surrender with this defeatist,
self-fulfilling prophecy is the last thing we need our allies in the Assembly to do this is the time we
need you to stand strong and lead the fight for working families.
We do not accept that the Assembly lacks leverage. There are numerous issues that are important
to the Governor and his allies in the Senate GOP, and you have the ability to fight back. This is the
time when those legislators who understand the importance of maintaining a stock of rent-protected
housing must stand up, and stand firm, for real rent reform:
Repeal of Vacancy Deregulation
Re-regulation of the hundreds of thousands of deregulated units we have lost
in the last two decades
Closing of loopholes that increasingly make rent-regulated housing unaffordable
Under your leadership, the Assembly passed such a bill, A7526, on May 19. While we have
concerns about some features of this bill, it represents on balance a strong pro-rent regulation
statement by your house. This statement must become a commitment to engage in serious
negotiations with the Governor and the Senate, and to use leverage to win significant improvements
in our rent laws. In past years the Assembly has passed symbolic one-house tenant bills, then caved
without applying pressure to the Senate to enact them into law. We hope this is not the case now.

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REAL
RENT
REFORM

R3

R3 | REAL RENT REFORM CAMPAIGN

c/o Met Council on Housing | 339 Lafayette Street, #301 | New York, NY 10012

This years opportunity for real rent reform might never come again.
With the media finally paying attention to the connection between real estate money and policy
outcomes, and with a spotlight turned on Glenwood Management at the center of scandals
involving the former leaders of both houses, as well as the single biggest contributor to Governor
Cuomo the time is now for a serious effort to restore our rent laws.
The world now knows that the existing rent laws are the product of a corrupt process that led to the
arrest of both former leaders of the legislature. Mr. Speaker, you have the power to reject and negate
this corruption with your actions in the coming weeks. You can be a hero to the tenants of New York
City and Nassau, Westchester and Rockland Counties. We urge you not to fail.
Sincerely,
Sarah Desmond,
Executive Director,
Housing Conservation
Coordinators

Alyssa Aguilera,
Executive Director,
VOCAL-NY Action Fund

Ava Farkas,
Executive Director,
Met Council on Housing

Dennis Hanratty,
Executive Director,
Mount Vernon
United Tenants

Jeannie Dubnau, Chair,

Riverside Edgecombe
Neighborhood
Association

Jennifer A Flynn,
Executive Director,
VOCAL-NY

Frank Lang,
Director of Housing,
St. Nicks Alliance

Michael McKee,
Treasurer,
Tenants Political
Action Committee

Harvey Esptein,
Associate Director,
Urban Justice Center

Ramon Peguero,
Executive Director,
Southside United
HDFC - Los Sures

Michelle de la Uz
Executive Director,
Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc.

Steve Herrick,
Executive Director,
Cooper Square
Committee

Sue Susman,
President,
Central Park Gardens
Tenants Association

Pat Singer,
Founder,
Brighton Neighborhood
Association

Sue Susman
Marc L. Greenberg,
Executive Director,
Interfaith Assembly on
Homelessness and Housing

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Susan Steinberg,
Board Chair,
Stuyvesant Town-Peter
Cooper Village Tenants
Association

Stephanie Lasher,
President,
Community Free
Democrats

Nikki Ledger,
President,
30 Sickles St. Association

Nikki Ledger
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