Rent regulation is at the heart of ensuring middle-class and lower-income families can afford to stay in their homes. With the state’s economy still in recovery and tenants struggling to afford skyrocketing rent prices, now more than ever, we needed to enhance—not simply extend—rent regulations.

Between 13,000 and 40,000 apartments are decontrolled every year, making it harder for individuals and families to stay in apartments or find an affordable place to live. Without this new law, it is estimated that more than 100,000 additional apartments would be lost to decontrol over the next few years. Instead of allowing rent regulations to expire or just simply extending them, we were able to create a groundbreaking law that works on closing loopholes and makes it increasingly difficult for landlords to raise rent and remove apartments from rent control, making sure that the rights of all tenants are not compromised.

With New York’s rent-regulation laws set to expire, I successfully fought to strengthen rent regulations with the boldest improvements in nearly 30 years, protecting more tenants against unfair rent hikes and preventing landlords from deregulating more apartments (Ch. 97 of 2011).

The new law:

• Makes it tougher for landlords to exploit loopholes and deregulate apartments
• Raises the vacancy deregulation threshold and the high-rent threshold to $2,500 per month, while increasing the income threshold to $200,000 per year