TESTIMONY
Oksana Mironova on New York City's Housing Crisis and the Need for Regulatory Frameworks
1:50:01
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3 min
Oksana Mironova urges the need for regulatory frameworks amidst New York City's housing crisis, focusing on the plummeting net rental vacancy rate and the role of rent stabilization and control.
- Mironova reports a drastic decrease in New York City's net rental vacancy rate from 4.54% in 2021 to 1.41% in 2023, indicating an urgent housing crisis.
- She advocates for rent control and stabilization as critical tools to balance power between tenants and landlords, especially in low vacancy conditions.
- Mironova discusses the impact of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), highlighting how it curtails landlords' exploitative practices and the complicity of certain lenders in these practices.
- She suggests leveraging city programs like Neighborhood Pillars and the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) to transform distressed properties into permanently affordable housing.
Oksana Mironova
1:50:01
Great.
1:50:02
Thank you so much.
1:50:03
Thank you for holding this hearing.
1:50:05
My name is Aksana Mironova, and I'm a senior policy analyst at the Community Service Society of New York.
1:50:11
The 2023 HVS shows that New York City's net rental vacancy rate is 1.41%.
1:50:18
One of the lowest in record.
1:50:20
It is a steep fall from the 2021 rate, which was 4.54%.
1:50:25
1 of the highest in record.
1:50:27
Such as an extreme swing denotes extreme times when they need for a regulatory framework that balances the skills between tenants and landlords is most needed.
1:50:37
When vacancy rates are low, individual tenant households lack market power.
1:50:41
This is the legal justification for rent control and rent stabilization.
1:50:46
When there is an extreme imbalance in market power between landlords and tenants, it is incumbent on the state to step in and prevent the most severe forms of exploitation.
1:50:55
Rent stabilization, and rent control.
1:50:57
Keep landlines from exploiting this housing crisis and gives tenants the legal backing to push back against deferred maintenance and neglect with the confidence that their lease will be renewed at the rate allowed by law.
1:51:11
I wanted to take a second to make a note on the HSDPA and some of the questions that council member wrestler had He's not here, but that's okay.
1:51:24
So this is the 2nd HBS since the HSBC passed in 2019.
1:51:30
Before the HSTPA, when the tenant moved out, rent stabilization rent rent stabilization departments were eligible for 20% as a right increase.
1:51:39
And unchecked and often inflated increases resulting from individual apartment improvements.
1:51:44
Apartments that reached the legal rent of 2816 were eligible for de control.
1:51:49
And scrupulous landlords developed business practices contingent on these loopholes, all geared towards increasing the net operating income of their stabilized properties which allowed them to overleverage their buildings with more and more debt.
1:52:03
Conditions for tenants got so bad that the city was forced to sharpen its definition of tenant harassment.
1:52:09
Lenders were complicit in these practices.
1:52:11
As A and HD's Equivalent Reinvestment Committee has shown some multifamily lenders core business practices relied on making multifamily loans to bad acting landlords.
1:52:22
For example, year after year, building after building signature bank, which collapsed just a couple of months ago, consistently made multifamily loans that were speculative and underwritten to practices of displacement.
1:52:36
Harassment, or building neglect.
1:52:39
If previous rounds of sky high valuations of rent stabilized buildings were based on dreams of ever rising rents, and net operating income, today's are based on realistic assessments of what tenants pay each month according to the law.
1:52:53
At the same time, the reality is that there are financially distressed rent stabilized properties on the market.
1:52:59
As this committee considers the implications of the 2020 2023 HBS, and it's a relationship to the rent stabilization law of 1969.
1:53:08
We hope it also engages with the opportunity to rescue or leverage properties and turn them into permanently affordable housing.
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:53:17
Thank you.
1:53:18
Can I can I just ask you to expound upon what you believe the council can do to help rest you the overleveraged properties?
Oksana Mironova
1:53:25
Thank you for that question.
1:53:28
The city could intervene by funding neighborhood pillars.
1:53:31
A program created by the De Blasio administration in the long shadow of the 2008 foreclosure crisis, which allows the city to work with preservation purchasers.
1:53:44
City Council should also pass Coppa, the community opportunity to purchase acts.
1:53:50
To establish a legal framework for the transfer of buildings from distressed private ownership to public tenants or community controlled social housing.
