Cindy Rodriguez
Cindy Rodriguez has been a staff reporter at WNYC, New York Public Radio since July of 2002. As the station’s urban policy reporter she covers the impacts of poverty on communities in all five boroughs. ...
Tenants Groups Sue Rent Board
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
New York, NY –
This summer the Rent Guidelines Board took the unusual step of approving higher increases for tenants who've lived in their rent-regulated apartments a long time and who pay some of the lowest rents. But a recent lawsuit challenges that decision. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez reports.
REPORTER: This rare type of increase requires that low rent paying tenants who've lived in their apartments more than 6 years pay at least $45 more a month for one-year leases and $85 more for two-year leases. That would bring their increases up to par with tenants whose rent is a thousand dollars a month.
Ellen Davidson, a legal aid attorney, calls the increase a poor tax. She filed the lawsuit on behalf of two tenants and a housing group and says the Board exceeded its authority by creating two different classes of tenants subject to two different increases even though they live in the same building.
But Marvin Markus, chairman of the Rent Guidelines Board, says similar increases have been challenged before and the court has upheld the board's decision. For WNYC, I'm Cindy Rodriguez.
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