NEW YORK — Up to 50,000 New York City apartments will become rent regulated again after their landlords illegally broke with the state-mandated rules while receiving affordable housing tax breaks, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday.
The owners of more than 4,000 buildings broke with rent regulation guidelines while receiving J-51 tax benefits, which are reserved for landlords renovating affordable housing buildings, the New York State Homes and Community Renewal Office said.
These landlords will receive letters warning them to re-regulate their rents between April and June - or face paying triple the amount they overcharged aggrieved residents.
"There will be zero tolerance for those who disregard the law and reap these benefits while denying tenants affordable housing they are obligated to provide," Cuomo said in a statement.
Landlords can apply to deregulate apartments once leases expire if there is high vacancy or if rents rise above a $2,700 per month threshold due to operational costs. But J-51 tax break beneficiaries are not eligible for deregulation, as a state court ruled back in 2009.
The incentive is targeting nearly 2,000 buildings in Manhattan, 700 buildings in Queens, 500 buildings in The Bronx, 800 buildings in Brooklyn and 20 buildings in Staten Island. These buildings were found by cross-referencing buildings in the J-51 system that had exited the rent regulation system.
Delsenia Glover, of the Alliance for Tenant Power, said the initiative is good in theory but "there's certain things screaming out at me," such as an apparent lack of plan to notify affected residents.
"It's going to be another burden on the tenant, as it's always been, to make sure (the state is) enforcing the rules," Glover told DNAInfo.
She also questioned what recourse there will be for people pushed out of their apartments by these landlords and who will determine how much residents are owed.
"I just looked a this (announcement) and I chuckled a little bit about this because they waited until 2016 to write a letter to landlords to ask them to follow a law?" Glover said.
The initiative will create about 5 percent more affordable housing units than are currently available, NYSHCR sources said.
"This J-51 Re-registration Initiative is just a small part of that oversight to protect tenants and ensure that landlords follow the law," NYSHCR Commissioner James Rubin said.
Last month, 1,800 apartments were returned to rent regulation after landlords illegally received tax breaks while denying tenants rent-stabilized leases.
Weeks later, NYSCHR sent a letter to more than two dozen buildings that illegally removed central heating systems and forced residents to pay for heat.
