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by JackFr 4632 days ago
You're both right and wrong. Right about the destructive and counterproductive effects of rent control and rent stabilization.

Wrong about why we are still saddled with these laws. The dirty little secret is that owners of condos and coops in the city know that by constraining the supply of housing in the city, their properties appreciate in value.
1 comments
busterarm 4631 days ago
As far as rent control's end of it, I call bullshit. There are fewer than 40,000 rent controlled apartments left in NYC. Rent stabilization is a lot higher (~800k) but it's not as good at keeping the prices down.

There are much worse problems constraining housing supply like how NY is zoned (though Bloomberg did a lot to change this). Zoning that controls the Floor-Area Ratio in many neighborhoods keeps old 4-story tenement buildings from being knocked down in favor of denser housing.

Worse still are minimum parking requirements where landlords are forced to build or provide parking to tenants when it's just not possible. Sunnyside, Queens is the perfect example of this problem.

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JackFr 4631 days ago
Maybe I overstated the case. You'll get no argument from me.

My only point was that while rich people everywhere use zoning to constrain housing and make their own properties more valuable through public policy, in NYC the rent stabilization and control laws have similar effects while masquerading as enlightened social policy.

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busterarm 4631 days ago
Well, rent control came about a long time ago when the city was really broke and had serious problems. The city has really been trying their best their best to get rid of it for at least 20 years now. The city would rather have poor folks confined to housing projects and "set asides" in new construction through lottery systems. Same effect but they don't have the same history and stigma of rent control.

Obviously there's still a need for these programs but people have extreme reactions either way based on their politics.

What I will say is that rent control, aside from the affordable rents, gave me huge opportunities as far as what schools I could go to and socially. If I had to live in other areas for low-income folks growing up, there's a good chance I wouldn't have come as far as I have.

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