On day rent increases take effect, residents rally onOn day rent increases take effect, residents rally onOn day rent increases take effect, residents rally on

Chelsea Now photos by Jefferson Siegel

State Sen. Thomas Duane addresses the crowd at the rally.

On day rent increases take effect, residents rally on

By Jefferson Siegel

Several hundred tenant advocates braved wind and rain to rally in Harlem late Wednesday afternoon, the same day that new, sizeable increases for rent-stabilized apartments went into effect.

The increases levied by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board—4.5 percent for one-year lease renewals and 8.5 percent for two-year lease renewals—are the highest since 1989. London Terrace resident Marguerite Yaghjian stood in the rain with other members of the West Side Neighborhood Alliance to protest the increases.

“I was in the battle of the West Side stadium,” Yaghjian explained, regarding the ill-fated plan to build a football stadium on the far West Side. “The developers have run free under Mayor Bloomberg. They’re building without thinking about the neighborhood.”

Many speakers at the rally, held at the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building Plaza on 125th St., called for the repeal of the Urstadt law, which gives control of city rent laws to state legislators. They also decried the Rent Guidelines Board for imposing onerous increases.

State Sen. Tom Duane then roused the crowd with a fiery oration.

“We absolutely need to have real rent reform if we’re going to be able to keep affordable housing in this city,” Duane told Chelsea Now. “We have to reform the Rent Guidelines Board, we have to bring the self-determination regarding rent laws back to New York City by repealing the Urstadt law, and we have to make sure that when a landlord buys out of the Mitchell-Lama program, that those tenants get to stay in rent regulation.”

Duane recently introduced a bill to reform the RGB, which would overhaul the board and effect deep changes within.

Asked if the Democrats could regain control of the state Senate in November, which would likely bolster the bill’s chances, Duane replied, “I’m cautiously optimistic. I want to see New York become a blue state.”

In a statement, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried called the new increa es “blatantly unfair.” “The tenants who are affected are overwhelmingly lower-income New Yorkers who cannot afford this unfair hit.”