[busterarm]

Do tell me how your $4k apartment rental, at nearly 3 times the national average rent and above market for most of NYC, is the scourge of housing markets, forcing rents up for everyone and preventing new construction.

Because that's what rent regulation's detractors are arguing, even though your empirical evidence (and mine) suggest the opposite. That's the context we're discussing this in.

[heyoni]

OP and my apartments are actually new developments benefiting from these breaks.

[busterarm]

Missing the forest for the trees.

[heyoni]

I'm not sure you even know my opinion on rent control from this interaction. You asked a very specific question:

> is the scourge of housing markets, forcing rents up for everyone and preventing new construction.

The tax abatements obviously fuel new construction and bring in a new class of rent control to NYC. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

I don't claim to know, but this type of apartment definitely filled a need for myself and others who want decently managed apartments without worrying about spontaneous jumps in rent (i.e. if Amazon had moved out here). And obviously, we're not the crowd of people totting around kids, barely making ends meet but at the end of the day, I still have to go to work to pay rent or I'm screwed with the rest of them...so it's nice to at least know that my taxes (tax breaks) bought me some stability.

PS: these buildings are also required to set aside a number of units for lower income residents, which again, I'm happy to pay taxes towards.

Anyway, what was your point?

[busterarm]

I guess the sarcasm missed you completely.

I didn't care about your specific opinion on rent control because you didn't express one, I'm saying that your comments to give counter-evidence to what I was saying didn't even have any context in the discussion and will be used as fuel for the anti-regulation people that I said don't know what they're talking about.

You basically injected a non-sequitur into the discussion and are using it to start an argument, which is silly, because I believe rent regulation is a necessary evil.

[heyoni]

/edit never mind, I get it. I actually think you're taking this a little too close to heart. I may be guilty of having missed your sarcasm, but I was addressing a point you inadvertently made. That's not the same as looking for a fight.

[busterarm]

Hey no worries. Sorry, I do take this very close to heart as I grew up extremely poor and I owe a lot to the fact that I had rent control growing up. This is a pretty inflammatory topic on HN in general and I have a long history of being flamed into oblivion every time it comes up.

Lotta contempt for the poor on here, but this thread has actually been a rare exception. Might be the only set of posts that don't have 30 downvotes attached to them.