Coup leaves housing bills vulnerable

With legislative uncertainty for several major housing bills continuing through the summer into fall, local tenant leaders and residents say they fear that longtime affordable housing units are vulnerable to political action.

Since the Republicans took control of the New York state Senate on June 8 by a 32 to 30 advantage, three bills that tenant organizers say are imperative to the protection of affordable housing have yet to make it to the floor.

Locally, this inaction is worrisome to whole housing units. At Trinity House on 92nd Street and Columbus Avenue, which the Trinity School built in 1968 and has since owned as part of the middle-income subsidy program, Mitchell-Lama, the future is as uncertain as the frozen legislation in Albany.

In Albany, the major standstill for housing legislation has left several bills hanging, which in turn has left many local issues—such as vacancy decontrol, the Mitchell-Lama subsidy program, and Section 8 voucher tenant laws—in a state of flux.

And residents and tenants’ activists in Harlem and in Trinity House have their eyes on one bill that would amend the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974, which, if extended would protect affordability for existing tenants, while still allowing owners eligibility for rent increases under specific guidelines.

Here in New York, a number of private developers are now in the process of buying out of the Mitchell-Lama state housing subsidy program, while other landlords are allowing Section 8 federal housing subsidy contracts to expire without renewal, or terminate altogether.

This new Emergency Tenant Protection Act—now in deadlock—would provide a safety net for current tenants who fear loss of Mitchell-Lama or Section 8 housing due to private deals between developers and landlord.

This bill died in 2008 in the housing, construction, and community development committee in the state Senate. Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers currently represents this bill and another concerning vacancy decontrol, which would protect tenants against induced vacancy through harassment or ignored maintenance problems.

“There is a consistent and growing need for affordable housing,” Stewart-Cousins said. “People are very concerned about the affordability of their apartments. There are thousands of districts with vacancy decontrol, and we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people who would be impacted,” she said of these retroactive bills that would protect current rent-regulated tenants against future losses.

“The day the coup happened, we were trying to vote these bills out of the housing committee, but that vote never took place,” Stewart-Cousins said of the Republican control established this summer. “It has been lying in the committee since then.”

The Trinity House had a mandatory 40-year preservation period that expired in 2008. The landlord, the Trinity School, sought in the spring to sell the apartments to a developer, Pembroke Companies Inc., according to Myles Amend, director of development and alumni relations at the Trinity School.

The deal was cancelled in a mutual agreement after the city did not approve the sale, Amend added.

So for anxious tenants of Trinity House, the stalled legislation is of immediate importance, and some feel they are playing a waiting game.

“We all hope it’ll stay in the program, but we just don’t know,” Trinity resident Sheila Denner said last week.

Amend said in interview on Tuesday, “All I can say about that at the moment is there are no plans or discussion about leaving the Mitchell-Lama program, but a year from now we might take up that idea.”

Some residents expressed hopelessness. “It’s only a matter of time before someone buys this building out of the program,” a resident named Nieves, who declined to give his last name and has lived in the building since the 1970s, said. “It’s very likely.”

Amend said there is currently no sale in progress, and he predicts there wouldn’t be one anytime soon considering the economy. But, they would like to leave the business of real estate as soon as possible.

“Selling would provide funds for the school to pursue its mission,” he said.

While local tenants continue to express these fears, politicians express a mirrored frustration over the legislative roadblock. Carolyn Burke, legislative director for Sen. Liz Krueger, who is sponsoring one of the affordable housing bills, said, “We have a very slim majority, 32-30, and if just one Democrat opposes the bill, we can’t move it. If not next year, then definitely the year after because with the election, we’ll pick up more seats.”

“There are over twenty sponsors of my bill, but we need 32,” Stewart-Cousins added.

Tom Briggs, a representative from the office of Sen. Bill Perkins, said that it is not uncommon for a bill to sit in the committee. “This is the aging process,” he said.

Nellie Bailey, co-founder of the Harlem Tenants Council, said that this is more than just stalled legislation. “As to whether the bills will be passed, that is anyone’s guess.”

Tags: News, Katherine Meduski, affordable housing, Section 8