Statement in Reaction to RGB Preliminary Vote

Strongly condemning the RGB as “reckless and irresponsible,” Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York (SPONY), said, “The RGB is violating its statutory mandate to objectively analyze relevant data and base rent adjustments on preserving the viability and health of rent-stabilized housing. This vote, instead, continues a decade-long pattern of defunding privately owned rent-stabilized housing stock and clearly surrenders to City’s Hall’s political pressure. It ignores the severe economic realities of mom-and-pop, generational, immigrant small property owners whose capped rent streams make it impossible to keep pace with skyrocketing property tax, insurance, utility, repair, and operating costs. Flouting its obligations, making decisions based on politics, and demonstrating a clear bias against small owners has serious legal implications,” Korchak said. “The RGB’s own data is distorted because it lumps older, financially distressed, majority-rent-stabilized buildings with profitable core Manhattan and newer buildings that are majority-free-rent or have only one or two rent-stabilized apartments. In its final vote, the RGB must provide separate rent orders for buildings constructed pre-1973, or these properties are going to fall further into economic distress and ultimately into the hands of predatory landlords, or worse, the city will add this housing to its abysmal NYCHA portfolio.”