Landlord Legislators Carved Themselves Out of Good Cause Eviction

Just seven of these “landlord legislators” would have been exempt from the law’s original version, which they disproportionately opposed. (The original version would have only excluded buildings of four units or fewer where the owner lived in one of those units.) The only legislators covered by the enacted law are Assemblymembers Amy Paulin, whose husband owns shares in nearly 200 Manhattan apartments, and Inez Dickens, who owns half of 31 apartments in Harlem. More than a dozen of the landlord legislators own properties through vehicles like LLCs, rather than under their own names, illustrating one difficulty with the small landlord exemption: It could be nearly impossible for tenants to verify what properties landlords actually own.

The final version of the law will allow covered tenants to ask housing court judges to block rent increases higher than 10 percent, or less in years when inflation is low.

Landlord legislators were sympathetic to arguments against the law, people on both sides of negotiations said.

“At some point during the conversation, they’d say, ‘Oh, I’m a small landlord, too,’ or, ‘My parents have a two-family house and they have tenants,’” said Ann Korchak, president of Small Property Owners of New York, which lobbied against good cause eviction. “I think it was in solidarity. They got the challenging piece of it.”

“There were lawmakers who were pretty explicit about the fact that they themselves own rental properties and that influenced them to not want to support an expansion of tenant protections,” said Julia Salazar, the Senate sponsor of the original good cause eviction bill.

Both declined to name specific legislators.

Senate Housing Committee Chair Brian Kavanagh, who supported good cause eviction, said that the exemption for small portfolios “comes out of a pretty broad sympathy in Albany for small landlords.”

“Renters always have to fight an uphill battle to convince legislators to take them seriously,” said Samuel Stein, housing analyst at the Community Service Society. “As long as there’s that solid quarter of legislators that are rental property owners, there’s going to be pushback against universal tenant protections.”

Landlord legislators also helped to kill a more ambitious effort at housing legislation last year, disproportionately opposing both good cause eviction and Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature plan to boost housing growth around the state, a New York Focus analysis found at the time.

Hochul heralded the budget as “the most significant improvement in housing policy in three generations,” but its provisions to build more homes are far more modest than her housing plan from last year.

“Ultimately, this year’s budget does nothing to change the status quo that allows local governments absolute power to ban new homes,” said Annemarie Gray, executive director of the pro-development organization Open New York. “If this is a once-in-a-generation housing package, soon no one will be able to afford to live in New York.”

With good cause eviction now in place, albeit in limited form, renter-focused legislators and organizers are thinking about what comes next on the tenant agenda.