Manhattan judge asked to determine if rent guidelines should be based on tenant affordability

For some tenants, the rent is still “too damn high” — but is that something the city’s Rent Guidelines Board can consider when it decides just how high rents can go for more than 1 million rent stabilized apartments?

That is what a Manhattan judge has been asked to determine by landlords who argued Tuesday that tenant affordability is not a factor that the board can weigh when it sets rent increases each year.

“Affordability is not the be all and end all of the rent stabilization law,” Jeffrey Turkel, the lawyer for the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Debra James.

The RSA has asked the judge to rule that the board was “arbitrary and capricious” in 2015 and 2016 for even considering tenant affordability when it decided to freeze rents for stabilized tenants renewing their leases.

Full Article – http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/landlords-don-rent-guidelines-based-tenant-paychecks-article-1.2960656