NYC Rent Guideline Board Votes To Hike Rents

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The New York City Rent Guideline Board voted Tuesday to hike rents by 1.25 percent on one-year leases and 2 percent on two-year leases.

The board voted 7-2 Tuesday night during a raucous meeting at Baruch College, where members couldn't even finish their sentences and many left feeling like retiree George Satiroff.

"Well, I was disappointed," he told 1010 WINS' Samantha Liebman.

He says the increases will be in addition to the lawful double digit increase he's had to pay because his landlord made improvements to his building.

But Joe Strasburg, President of the Rent Stabilization Association, says most landlords don't even have the money to make those improvements.

"Owners will never have, catch up to those two years of zero increases and that kind of translates itself to a deferment of maintenance," he said. "People just don't have the money."

Tenant members of the board say until the landlords open their books, they're not convinced they need the money since data shows even with rent freezes, profits have increased.

At a preliminary vote in April the Board had recommended three percent and four percent increases on one and two year leases. Rents had been frozen for one-year leases for the previous two years

The new rents will take effect in October.

The increases will affect more than one million New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments.

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)