New York Pilot Program to Test Expanded Tenant Protections

Sally Goldenberg reports: "The [New York] City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio have reached a deal on legislation that would expand protections for rent-regulated tenants who are being harassed by landlords eager to move them out, renovate and charge much higher rents."

The bill establishes a pilot program, according to Goldenberg, that requires property owners of buildings with recurring housing code violations or recently changed ownership, "acquire a 'certificate of no harassment' in neighborhoods undergoing rezonings as well as targeted low-income neighborhoods."

According to Goldenberg, the bill enacting the pilot program spent a year working its way through negotiations in City Hall. "Council member Brad Lander, a Brooklyn Democrat, pushed the administration to commit to expanding the law as part of the Council's approval of an affordable housing policy in 2016," reports Goldenberg.

The article includes more detail about the challenges the bill responds to—especially in context of the rezoning processes ongoing around the city in neighborhoods like East Harlem. Neighborhoods with recent rezonings, like East New York and Far Rockaway, would also gain the new tenant protections enabled by the new law.