Relates to enacting the rent emergency stabilization for tenants act on local determinations of a housing emergency; authorizes a city with a population of one million or more to declare an emergency as to any class of housing accommodations if the vacancy rate for the housing accommodations in such class within such municipality is not in excess of five percent and a declaration of emergency may be made as to all housing accommodations if the vacancy rate for the housing accommodations within such municipality is not in excess of five percent; authorizes other cities, towns and villages to declare a housing emergency after considering publicly available data and holding public hearings.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A4877C
SPONSOR: Shrestha TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seven-
ty-four, in relation to enacting the rent emergency stabilization for
tenants act on local determinations of a housing emergency
PURPOSE:
This bill amends the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 to expand
the range of factors villages, towns, and cities other than New York
City may consider to declare a housing emergency and adopt rent stabili-
zation; allows them to apply rent stabilization to buildings built more
than 15 years ago (rather than only buildings built before 1974, as
provided under current law); and allows them to rent-stabilize apart-
ments in 4- or 5-unit buildings, in addition to those in buildings with
6 or more units. The bill will have no effect in New York City or in any
municipality that does not choose through its local government to make
use of its provisions.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1 of the bill establishes the short title for this act as the
"rent emergency stabilization for tenants act" (the REST Act),
Section 2 of the bill amends Section 3 of section 4 of chapter 576 of
the laws of 1974 to provide that villages, towns, and cities other than
New York City may determine whether to declare a housing emergency using
one of two methods.
-- The municipality may, after considering publicly available data and
holding public hearings, declare a housing emergency based on various
factors, such as overall housing supply, vacancy rates, the availability
of affordable and habitable housing accommodations, rent burdens, or
other measures of housing affordability such as the local or regional
homelessness rate and the need for regulating rents in that locality.
-- In the alternative, the municipality may declare a housing emergency
based on a study of vacancy rates in rental housing, pursuant to a proc-
ess that is unchanged by this bill.
In villages, towns, and cities other than New York City in which the
local government has already opted in to rent stabilization before the
effective date of this act, the local government may similarly use
either of these two methods to add buildings not built or substantially
rehabilitated within the past 15 years under the provisions of the new
paragraph 5-b, summarized below.
The manner in which New York City may declare a housing emergency is
unchanged by this bill.
Section 2 also authorizes villages, towns, and cities other than New
York City to provide for rent stabilization in buildings with fewer than
six but not fewer than four units if they choose.
Section 3 of the bill adds a new paragraph 5-b to subdivision a of
section 5 of section 4 of chapter 576 of the laws of 1974 to specify
that in villages, towns, and cities other than New York City that
provide for rent regulation, buildings that were built or substantially
rehabilitated within the past 15 years, are exempt from regulation;
under the ETPA currently, buildings that were built or substantially
rehabilitated after January 1, 1974 are exempt, unless they are regu-
lated pursuant to another law or regulation.
Section 4 of the bill sets forth the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
Rent stabilization in localities other than New York City is governed by
the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 (ETPA). Under the ETPA in
its original form, municipalities in Nassau, Rockland, and Westchester
counties may adopt rent stabilization if they declare a state of housing
emergency, defined as having a rental housing vacancy rate of less than
5% in building classes they designate to be regulated. The Housing
Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA) amended the ETPA so
that any municipality in the state may opt into rent stabilization if it
meets the emergency declaration criteria. According to HCR's most recent
data, a total of 40 localities outside of New York City have adopted
rent regulation: 16 in Nassau, 2 in Rockland, 21 in Westchester, and 1
in Ulster (the City of Kingston).
To adopt rent stabilization under current law, a municipality must
conduct a formal study to determine whether to declare a housing emer-
gency. The study must examine only housing built before 1974 and only in
buildings with 6 or more units, even if this is a very small portion of
the housing in the area; and the sole factor the study may consider is
whether the vacancy rate in this subset of the housing stock is below 5
percent. If this standard is met, the municipality may declare an emer-
gency and adopt rent regulation, but only for this subset of their hous-
ing, built more than half a century ago.
There are about 150 jurisdictions other than New York State that have
rent regulation laws; none include language that defines a housing emer-
gency based on a single, quantifiable threshold similar to New York's
five-percent vacancy threshold, according to analysis conducted by the
Community Service Society of New York.
The Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants (REST) Act recognizes that,
in addition to vacancy rates, publicly available data on a locality's
eviction rate, homeless shelter population, renters' housing cost
burdens, and other relevant indicators can also demonstrate a locality's
lack of housing availability, affordability, and stability. For example,
eviction filing data in each county is available and updated monthly on
the Office of Court Administration's Statewide Landlord Tenant Eviction
Dashboard, and localities may have access to data on their local home-
less shelters. These metrics can paint a fuller picture of a locality's
housing needs and can fulfill the ETPA's requirement that localities may
institute rent stabilization only after declaring a housing emergency.
At the same time, there may be localities that wish to declare an emer-
gency pursuant to the existing process, based on the vacancy rate; this
bill leaves that process unchanged.
The REST Act also seeks to update the ETPA so that localities adopting
rent stabilization may do so in a way that makes sense for the here and
now. The ETPA in its current form extends rent stabilization to build-
ings with six or more units, an easy threshold to reach in high-density
New York City where multifamily residential buildings are more common.
Recognizing that the mix of housing varies widely across the state, this
legislation would allow localities to set a lower building size thresh-
old of four or more units for rent stabilization coverage. Finally, when
the ETPA went into effect in June 1974, the law permitted localities to
apply rent stabilization to eligible buildings that had been constructed
at that point -- on or before January 1, 1974. This eligibility date has
not changed in over 50 years. More recently, when the legislature
enacted the Good Cause Eviction law, it exempted all buildings built
within the last 15 years. This bill would reflect the ETPA's original
intent of enabling localities to provide rent stabilization protections
to a substantial portion of their housing, not just to buildings that
are half a century old, by including buildings constructed or substan-
tially rehabilitated more than 15 years ago.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2025:
A4877 (Shrestha) - Referred to Housing.
S4659 (Kavanagh) - Referred to Housing, Construction and Community
Development.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Minimal.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
