After emerging from a closed door meeting with Governor Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos sounded optimistic that a budget agreement could be announced tomorrow. But New Yorkers demanding changes to the rent regulation rules are bound to be disappointed, as are those who think the state's budget crisis should be solved, in part, by an income tax surcharge on New Yorkers making more than $200,000. "It’s off the table, it’s gone, it’s done, it’s dead," Skelos told reporters, referring to the so-called "millionaire's tax."
Skelos elaborated that he did not think the state government would shut down in a budget standoff, as the governor portends. But a renewal of rent stabilization laws will not be included in the budget, Skelos asserted. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, on the other hand, said rent stabilization is “on the table, it’s not concluded at all.” City Democrats want the repeal of two laws which allow landlords to escape price regulations when monthly rents exceed $2,000 and tenants earn more than $175,000 a year. According to the Post, the laws resulted in the loss of 13,500 units from the rent-regulation system in 2009 alone.
But yesterday Silver signaled that he was open to compromise for the sake of finishing the budget, telling reporters that "the true deadline" on rent stabilization was June 15th, when the current rent regulations expire. There are currently 1 million rent stabilized apartments left in NYC, but their numbers are decreasing as landlords drive out tenants once they pass the $2,000 threshold.
A dozen city lawmakers yesterday demanded action to preserve the remaining rent stabilized units, and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D- Manhattan) told the Post, "Such an important issue must be done early this year. Not under the cover of the night at 11:30 on June 14 in a smoke-filled room when the tenants get a take-it-or-leave-it bill."
