Assemblywoman Lin𝓡da Rosenthal — chief of the Housing Committee — got hers. And she’s gonna make damn sure no one else gets theirs.
Rosenthal won the equivalent of the New York Powerball: She inherited a rent-stabilized Upper West Side apartment from her parents.
She makes $༒154,000 a year, and𝕴 though we don’t know exactly what her rent is, it’s likely only about $2,000 a month, a fraction of the going rate.
Almost half of city apartments are rent-stabilized and, much like Rosenthal, the tenants — and the children of🔯 those tenants — never want to leave.
Ne🀅w York City’s vacancy rate is 3.1%, the lowest in the nation.
That’s why new rents are so high.
It’s scarcity.
The averageꦿ one-bedroom apartment goes for $3,648 a month — and even at that eye-popping price, the line for tenants would be d💖own the block.
In short: We need more housing.
Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams, to their credit, have a solution: Commercial real estate cratered during the pandemic, so make it easier for landlords to convert those buildings into apartments.
But Rosenthal and other Albany Democrats are standing in her way.
“I’m not that worried about non-affordable housing, actually,” Rosenthal told Adams admiꩵnistration officials. “People who have means can buy, rent anything they need in this city.”
The only way she’ll back a bill, she suggests, is if the owners of those buildings are forced to make all the new apartments “affordable” — that is, even more rent-stabiliz⛦edꦜ units.
This is, of course, a money-loser for those building owners, since conver𓃲sionꦐ wouldn’t be cheap.
Many would reject such a deal:ꦇ They’d do better to just let their buildings s🔯it empty.
If Alban🍌y would just get out of 🍎the way, the market would do its work.
By increasing the overall supply of housing, the vacancy rate goes up, co▨mpetition for apartments decreases — and the average new rent drops, acros꧋s the board.
We would have good new m𒊎iddle-class ho𝓀using in the city.
But no.
Rosenthal wouꦐld rather maintain a system where the housing stock never rises.
That the only way it’s affordable to construct a new building is to erect skinny towers full of luxury co♋ndo🌟s that are empty most days of the year.
And the only ones in apa꧑rtments they can afford are those who were lucky to be born into them, or to win a lottery that has worse odds than being stru💞ck by lightning.
It is a sclerotic way to run a city.
The only way to a housing market that’s vibrant and fair is not by controlling ren♓ts but by letting supply grow to meet the demand.
Let them build. Let them convert.
Make it so landlordsꦺ go begging for tenants, and not vice versa.
Stop standing in the w﷽ay of the New York dream, Linda Rosen🥃thal (& Co.). Let others have the chance at the life you have.