New York Rent Laws
RSL Table of Contents
NYC Rent Stabilization Law of 1969
Sec. 26-501. FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY.
The council hereby finds that a serious public emergency
continues to exist in the housing of a considerable number of
persons within the city of New York and will continue to exist
after April first, nineteen hundred seventy-four, that such
emergency necessitated the intervention of federal, state and
local government in order to prevent speculative, unwarranted and
abnormal increases in rents; that there continues to exist an
acute shortage of dwellings which creates a special hardship to
persons and families occupying rental housing; that the
legislation enacted in nineteen hundred seventy-one by the state
of New York removing controls on housing accommodations as they
become vacant, has resulted in sharp increases in rent levels in
many instances; that the existing and proposed cuts in federal
assistance to housing programs threaten a virtual end to the
creation of new housing, thus prolonging the present emergency;
that unless residential rents and evictions continue to be
regulated and controlled disruptive practices and abnormal
conditions will produce serious threats to the public health,
safety and general welfare; that to prevent such perils to health
safety and welfare, preventive action by the council continues to
be imperative that such action is necessary in order to prevent
exactions of unjust, unreasonable and oppressive rents and rental
agreements and to forestall profiteering speculation and other
disruptive practices tending to produce threats to the public
health, safety and general welfare; that the transition from
regulation to a normal market of free bargaining between landlord
and tenant, while still the objective of state and city policy,
must be administered with due regard for such emergency; and that
the policy herein expressed is now administered locally within
the city of New York by an agency of the city itself, pursuant to
the authority conferred by chapter twenty-one of the laws of
nineteen hundred sixty-two.
The council further finds that, prior to the adoption of local
laws sixteen and fifty-one of nineteen hundred sixty-nine, many
owners of housing accommodations in multiple dwellings, not
subject to the provisions of the city rent and rehabilitation law
enacted pursuant to said enabling authority either because they
were constructed after nineteen hundred forty-seven or because
they were decontrolled due to monthly rental of two hundred fifty
dollars or more or for other reasons, were demanding exorbitant
and unconscionable rent increases as a result of the aforesaid
emergency, which led to a continuing restriction of available
housing as evidenced by the nineteen hundred sixty-eight vacancy
survey by the united states bureau of the census; that prior to
the enactment of said local laws, such increases were being
exacted under stress of prevailing conditions of inflation and of
an acute housing shortage resulting from a sharp decline in
private residential construction brought about by a combination
of local and national factors; that such increases and demands
were causing severe hardship to tenants of such accommodations
and were uprooting long-time city residents from their
communities; that recent studies establish that the acute housing
shortage continues to exist; that there has been a further
decline in private residential construction due to existing and
proposed cuts in federal assistance to housing programs, that
unless such accommodations are subjected to reasonable rent and
eviction limitations, disruptive practices and abnormal
conditions will produce serious threats to the public health,
safety and general welfare; and that such conditions constitute a
grave emergency.
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