In addition to soaring food and fuel prices as well as a general economic slowdown, a fourth whammy is expected to wallop New York City's apartment dwellers.
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(AHN) -- The Big Apple's Rent Guidelines Board announced Thursday it approved an increase in one-year leases by 4.5 percent and 8.5 percent for two-year contract terms beginning Oct. 1. The biggest hit was reserved for long-term tenants who may be charged an extra $45 monthly for one-year leases and $85 for two-year contracts. About one million apartment renters are expected to be affected by the board's decision, which was the result of weeks of public consultation. The announcement, expectedly angered tenants. Irma Bonetti of Harlem protested to the New York Daily News the hefty hikes in rentals, which would ease the low income earners from New York. "I don't make enough money to pay the increase, and i haven't had a (pay) raise in five years," Bonetti said. In the previous years the board had authorized lower rate rental increases, by 3 percent for one-year leases and 5.75 percent for two-year contracts in 2007 and 4.25 percent and 7.25 percent, respectively, in 2006.
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Comments (2 posted):
The Mayor's development policies--which mask enormous private profits in a thin veil designed to mask the relatively small number of "subsidized" (read rent regulated at unaffordable prices) housing units being offerred--are only one third of the triad contributing to the rapid loss of rent regulated and affordable housing in the city.
Make no mistake: This Mayor and a stable of Developers have worked hand in glove with the powerful, pernicious and secretive DHCR and the politically right wing RGB to rapidly destroy what is left of the entire complex of regulated housing in the city.
The long term effects of the three sets of policies are already visible--and clearly felt by the working and middle class in a city where an economic crisis based on a combination of inflation (in food, housing, and energy costs) coupled with unemployment is well underway.
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