Imagine if after legalizing marijuana, lawmakers had learned that no new people had started smoking it. Would they have been disappointed? Would they have scheduled a hearing to figure out how to get more people stoned?
This is happening with rent stabilization.
Except in Kingston, price controls for apartments have not been adopted upstate, six years after the state legislature made that possible. This has upset Assembly members who love rent stabilization, especially Sarahana Shrestha and Linda Rosenthal.
To find out why, Rosenthal has scheduled a hearing, the Times Union reported.
I’m not here to tell you rent control is all bad. Like cannabis, it has benefits and drawbacks. My opinion, and that of nearly all economists, is that the drawbacks of price controls for housing outweigh the benefits — by a lot.
For that reason, rent control began in New York City as a temporary measure to be dropped when the city’s housing emergency — defined as a sub-5 percent vacancy rate — was over.
Unfortunately, it proved to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The policy’s winners became such a powerful constituency that politicians perpetuated the housing emergency rather than end it by allowing lots of new housing. Ever since, the winners (tenants in nice, low-rent units) have been prospering at the expense of the losers (everyone else).
But upstate localities just haven’t been able to get their housing emergencies started. Hence, no rent stabilization. Bummer!
It must suck to live without a housing emergency. Every time you need to find a new place, there are enough rentals available that landlords have to compete for your business. Terrible, I know.
Compare that to New York City, where the vacancy rate was last measured at a minuscule 1.4 percent — a triumph of 50 years of rent stabilization. In the city, apartment hunting is a true challenge, as it should be.
It wouldn’t seem right if New Yorkers could rent an apartment as easily as buying a TV, with manufacturers and retailers improving their efficiency, technology and economies of scale to offer the best features and prices.
Instead, finding a low-rent unit means reading the obituaries, building a network of sources and sending gift baskets to rental brokers to find out before anyone else if a rent-stabilized unit is becoming available. Fail, and you pay through the nose.
Except in New York City, Kingston and Nassau, Westchester and Rockland counties, all of which have rent stabilization (and high housing costs), New Yorkers are missing out on the excitement of finding that rare, inexpensive unit that comes with permanent lease renewals and succession rights.
Perhaps the hearing that legislators are planning will yield some ways to make this happen. One bill, which failed to pass last session, would create pathways to rent stabilization other than a low vacancy rate.
Given scarcity-inducing policies’ success in making house-hunting a blood sport downstate, lawmakers could even apply them to areas beyond housing.
For example, they could ban jewelry stores and commercial mining. That way, New Yorkers seeking a wedding ring or anniversary gift would have to dig for gemstones or dive for pearl-bearing oysters.
Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” Affordable housing should be no exception.
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