New York Rent Laws
EHRCL Table of Contents

The Local Emergency Housing Rent Control Act [1962]

Section 5.  AUTHORITY FOR LOCAL RENT CONTROL LEGISLATION.

Each city having a population of one million or more, acting
through its local legislative body, may adopt and amend local
laws or ordinances in respect of the establishment or designation
of a city housing rent agency. When it deems such action to be
desirable or necessitated by local conditions in order to carry
out the purposes of this section, such city, except as
hereinafter provided, acting through its local legislative body
and not otherwise, may adopt and amend local laws or ordinances
in respect of the regulation and control of residential rents,
including but not limited to provision for the establishment and
adjustment of maximum rents, the classification of housing
accommodations, the regulation of evictions, and the enforcement
of such local laws or ordinances. The validity of any such local
laws or ordinances, and the rules or regulations promulgated in
accordance therewith, shall not be affected by and need not be
consistent with the state emergency housing rent control law or
with rules and regulations of the state division of housing and
community renewal.

Notwithstanding any local law or ordinance, housing
accommodations which became vacant on or after July first,
nineteen hundred seventy-one or which hereafter become vacant
shall be subject to the provisions of the emergency tenant
protection act of nineteen seventy-four, provided, however, that
this provision shall not apply or become effective with respect
to housing accommodations which, by local law or ordinance, are
made directly subject to regulation and control by a city housing
rent agency and such agency determines or finds that the housing
accommodations became vacant because the landlord or any person
acting on his behalf, with intent to cause the tenant to vacate,
engaged in any course of conduct (including but not limited to,
interruption or discontinuance of essential services) which
interfered with or disturbed or was intended to interfere with or
disturb the comfort, repose, peace or quiet of the tenant in his
use or occupancy of the housing accommodations. The removal of
any housing accommodation from regulation and control of rents
pursuant to the vacancy exemption provided for in this paragraph
shall not constitute or operate as a ground for the subjection to
more stringent regulation and control of any housing
accommodation in such property or in any other property owned by
the same landlord, notwithstanding any prior agreement to the
contrary by the landlord. The vacancy exemption provided for in
this paragraph shall not arise with respect to any rented plot or
parcel of land otherwise subject to the provisions of this act,
by reason of a transfer of title and possession occurring on or
after July first, nineteen hundred seventy-one of a dwelling
located on such plot or parcel and owned by the tenant where such
transfer of title and possession is made to a member of the
tenant's immediate family provided that the member of the
tenant's immediate family occupies the dwelling with the tenant
prior to the transfer of title and possession for a continuous
period of two years.

The term "immediate family" shall include a husband, wife, son,
daughter, stepson, stepdaughter, father, mother, father-in-law or
mother-in-law.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, no local law or ordinance shall
hereafter provide for the regulation and control of residential
rents and eviction in respect of any housing accommodations which
are (1) presently exempt from such regulation and control or (2)
hereafter decontrolled either by operation of law or by a city
housing rent agency, by order or otherwise. No housing
accommodations presently subject to regulation and control
pursuant to local laws or ordinances adopted or amended under
authority of this subdivision shall hereafter be by local law or
ordinance or by rule or regulation which has not been theretofore
approved by the state commissioner of housing and community
renewal subjected to more stringent or restrictive provisions of
regulation and control than those presently in effect.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, no local law or ordinance shall
subject to such regulation and control any housing accommodation
which is not occupied by the tenant in possession as his primary
residence; provided, however, that such housing accommodation not
occupied by the tenant in possession as his primary residence
shall continue to be subject to regulation and control as
provided for herein unless the city housing rent agency issues an
order decontrolling such accommodation, which the agency shall do
upon application by the landlord whenever it is established by
any facts and circumstances which, in the judgment of the agency,
may have a bearing upon the question of residence, that the
tenant maintains his primary residence at some place other than
at such housing accommodation.