Rent Hike For 1M Stabilized NYC Apartments Goes Into Effect

NEW YORK CITY — The rent is getting too damn higher.

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board's controversial hike goes into effect on Sunday, Oct. 1, allowing owners of stabilized units to increase prices by up to 3 percent, city records show.

The new regulations, in place until Sept. 30, 2024, allow landlords to increase rents on one-year leases by 3 percent and two-year leases by 2.75 percent in the first year and 3.30 percent in the second.

The city's 1,048,860 rent stabilized apartments are home to roughly 2 million New Yorkers.

These hikes are far less than the 7 percent increase the Board considered in May during a heated public meeting that saw protesters, among them Bed Stuy's City Council member Chi Ossé, storm the stage.

And the decision came a year after another controversial increase saw stabilized rent increase 3.25 percent and 5 percent, respectively, for one- and two-year leases, the largest since former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration.

Landlords have said they need the cash to recover from the eviction moratorium, which ended in January, and rent freezes enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, in a city-hosted online forum, tenants raised serious concerns about raising rents in a city already paying record-breaking housing costs while boasting the largest income gap in the nation.

"Rent is already so overinflated in our city, and wages have not kept up- my friends and I are struggling to pay," said Valerie Milesi. "Most of us are one emergency away from losing our homes."

Regina Shanley, of Queens, pleaded with the board to issue a rent freeze or rollback because she didn't know where she'd find the money to may more on her stabilized Sunnyside apartment.

"Do I take the full dose or half the prescribed amount of medicine and pay the rent?" Shanley asked. "Do I feed the family nutritiously or pay the rent? "