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Read the press release here.

Pols and Community Leaders Rally Residents to Protest Rent Regulation Rollback

By Carla Zanoni | May 13, 2011 7:19pm

By Carla Zanoni

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — Northern Manhattan lawmakers and community groups are calling on residents to turn out en masse this month to protest the possible repeal of rent regulations.

At a forum Thursday night, a cadre of elected officials and community organizers, including State Sen. Adriano Espaillat and Assemblymen Denny Farrell and Guillermo Linares, made the case to a group of more than 100 people at the Church of the Intercession on 155th Street.

"Extending and strengthening rent regulations is the single most important thing our government can do right now to stabilize New York through these tough times and make sure millions of New Yorkers are not squeezed out of their homes," Espaillat said.

The officials called for the renewal of rent regulation laws, which expire June 15, for at least another eight years as well as the strengthening of such laws under a set of new bills Espaillat proposed in March, which would close loopholes that allow landlords to raise rents "unfairly."

Mike McKee of the Real Rent Reform campaign group said he was optimistic rent regulations would be renewed, but warned that more work needs to be done strengthening them.

"Without rent regulations, I dread to think what this city would be like," McKee said. "But if they are renewed in their current form, that would be a victory for the real estate lobby."

Organizers said the linchpin to successfully renewing the regs is support from Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has said he supports expanding rent protections.

But the governor has not yet committed to a specific proposal or eliminating vacancy decontrol, which allows landlords to move apartments from regulation once rents reach $2,000.

McKee said Thursday that residents of Northern Manhattan might have a particular power in swaying Cuomo to support the cause.

"Cuomo is very sensitive to communities of color and African American communities specifically," he said, referencing the 2002 racially-charged brouhaha surrounding Cuomo’s first race for governor against former State Comptroller Carl McCall, who is black.

The organizers asked residents to lend their voices in three ways: sending in postcards to the governor’s office; attending a rally outside Cuomo’s office on Third Avenue, between 40th and 41st streets, at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 23; and hopping on a bus to Albany to protest on Tuesday, May 24.

"There is strength in numbers," Espaillat said of the organized protests. "If we don’t show up now, there will be little to do on June 15."

For more information call 212-544-0173 or email eventsRSVP@adrianoespaillat.org.