By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The city's Rent Guidelines Board will decide Monday at 5.30 pm on the rent increases for the city's one million rent-stabilized apartments.
The nine-member board will consider an increase of between 3 and 5.75 percent for one-year leases and between 6 and 9 percent for two-year leases, as well as a 1 percent supplemental boost for oil-heated buildings to compensate for rising prices.
While building owners argue their costs have skyrocketed in recent years and tenants should share the burden, tenant advocates say landlords' profits remain strong and that many residents are already stretched to the limit as the economy continues to stumble.
"Any substantial increase would be devastating to my tiny income," Paul Bridgewater, who has lived on East 3rd Street for nearly three decades, testified at a marathon public hearing last week, where those who advocated higher rents were often hissed at and booed.
Increases, which will kick in this October, have typically hovered between 2 and 4 percent in recent years, with last year's vote raising rents 2.25 percent for one-year leases and 4.5 percent for two-year leases.
Monday's vote comes three days after Albany lawmakers voted to extend rent regulations through 2015 and added new protections to keep rent-stabilized apartments from flipping to market rates, including increasing the deregulation threshold from $2,000 to $2,500.
The vote is set to take place at 5:30 p.m. at Cooper Union's Great Hall at 7 E. 7th St.
Last year, the board approved increases of 2.25 percent for one-year leases and 4.5 percent for two-year leases after weeks of emotionally charged public hearings.
