New York State's 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act made it much harder to take apartments out of rent stabilization - except for one loophole. 

While waiting 3 years for the NYS housing agency (HCR) to write regulations implementing the law, landlords have dived into that loophole, combining empty rent-stabilized apartments with other space to create "Frankensteined" units with a brand new, very high first rent.  So far, those rents have been whatever the market will bear.  That  means fewer affordable apartments for all New Yorkers. 

HCR proposed Regulation § 2521.1(m) to close that loophole. In keeping with the law's purpose, any Frankensteined apartment including rent-stabilized space would be rent stabilized. And the "first rent" would be the last rent-stabilized rent, increased or decreased by the same percentage as the area of the stabilized unit is increased or decreased.   (The landlord can add up to $85 for improvements for each rent stabilized unit that's part of the new apartment.)  

That will discourage landlords from holding rent stabilized apartments off the market just to Frankenstein them. And that will put a dent in the roughly 40,000 affordable apartments now being warehoused instead of rented out to people who need them. 

But the regulation has to be finalized!  Tell DHCR it's time. 

- Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing