By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — More than 300,000 New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments could reap tens of millions in rent repayments after a judge ruled that the Rent Guidelines Board improperly charged them.
State Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman found the board, which regulates rent increases for stabilized apartments, created a so-called "poor tax" by allowing landlords hike rents less than $1,000 by specific amounts. The standard practice is for the mayoral-appointed board to allow a percentage increase.
In her decision, Goodman ruled that the court should not "permit a quasi-legislative agency, with a nine-member board, appointed by the mayor of New York, to perform a function originally designated to the [City Council]," which enacted the rent-stabilization law, the New York Post reported.
“In a time when New Yorkers are struggling more than ever, the Rent Guidelines Board exceeded its authority by punishing New Yorkers for remaining in their homes and neighborhoods and for being poor,” Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney in The Legal Aid Society’s Civil Law Reform Unit, said in a statement. “This decision is a major victory for all rent stabilized tenants in New York City.”
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn supported the lawsuit as well.
“The creation of this ‘poor tax’ was a direct attack by the Rent Guidelines Board on low income tenants – the very New Yorkers hit hardest by the current recession," Quinn said in a statement.
