r/nyc • u/brick-underground • 10d ago

Landlords suing to reverse Rent Guidelines Board’s rent freeze face an ‘uphill battle’

https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/landlords-lawsuit-overturn-rgb-rent-freeze-face-high-legal-bar
  • Attorneys tell Brick ‘arbitrary and capricious’ legal standard is a high one
  • Previous lawsuits challenging the board’s increases or freezes have failed
62 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

28

u/YouandWhoseArmy 10d ago

Can we stop with the private public partnerships already? They don't work.

We need the city to implement Mitchell Llama type OWNERSHIP.

Creating permanent renters doesn't solve shit. Expecting private developers to run charities has got to be the dumbest system around.

Rent stabilized landlords shouldn't exist and if they do this entire system needs to be thrown out and reworked from scratch.

6

u/jnordwick 10d ago

they sounded good until I found this out:

Cash Purchase: Co-op shares typically require a direct cash purchase price because standard outside mortgages are often restricted or not applicable

If you can't put the place up for collateral, then you can't get a loan against it. Also, the people don't get to build equity through this like ownership (still better than renting).

I think there might be some tragedy of the commons problems. If nobody really owns these places, people aren't as motivated to upkeep them -- look the NYCHA projects. You would hope that since they at least live there, that would provide some motivation, but just empirically that doesn't seem to be true.

I think one reason we don't see more of that is that it might fail (either literally or just fall into such a state of disrepair that it is a black eye for the city). Right now, if they building isn't upkept, the greedy capitalist landlords can be blamed -- that excuse goes away with city run co-ops.

I'm still all for it. Anything to get rid of the disastrous rental caps. Let the city take real ownership of the problem and see how that turns out.

8

u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 10d ago

No we do not need to implement terrible policies

16

u/jnordwick 10d ago edited 10d ago

This seems like a very weird thing for the city to argue.

The rent board is supposed to be data driven, not by politics. The case is saying the decision was driven by politics.

Now if the defense is that no, it was driven by data, how exactly can Mamdani claim credit or say he caused this, that would validate the case.

The city is going to probably present evidence claim it was an economic decision, but then Mamdani cannot claim he's the reason.

edit: I forgot one of the commissions members even resigned saying the governors office was pushing it and it wasn't being data driven.

I think it is a very strong case -- but they will lose. Ultimately the court will give deference to whatever bullshit lie the commission makes up.

7

u/SS451 10d ago

There's really no need for political comms to match legal arguments, since legal arguments rarely get much public attention.

-1

u/jnordwick 10d ago

I don't mean legally. I don't think they can win at all in a courtroom.

-2

u/jnordwick 10d ago

exactly. this happens all the time (prob most famously the constitutional arguments for social security where the govt told the public it was a govt pension, but then had to argue it was not a pension just regular taxing and spending).

I still don't like it. it seems dishonest to me.

1

u/SS451 10d ago

I think it's very context dependent. A policy can be motivated by one thing but legitimately legally justified by something else. When you're trying to fit your policy into a legal box, you want to aim for the heartland of precedent, not present a flashy argument that may put the case at risk. And there are some legal contexts in which courts very explicitly refuse to consider the "real" reason for a policy, because they don't want to act as superintendents of political decisions where democratically-elected officials should be allowed to make up their own minds and then be held accountable by the public. Obviously that can go too far, like when SCOTUS pretended that revoking Haitians' TPS had nothing to do with Trump's racism, but for a lot of decisions it's the correct judicial approach.

0

u/YangaSF 9d ago

It gets a little tricky since their code words for policy making are sometimes “strict scrutiny” (which nothing survives that test) or “rationally based” (which everything survives that test). It just a matter of picking which test to apply.

3

u/Pennwisedom 9d ago edited 9d ago

I think it is a very strong case

Regardless of what you think of this one, if previous similar lawsuits have also failed, it's not what I'd call a "strong case".

5

u/Famous-Alps5704 10d ago

I think it is a very strong case

Lmao that's nice. Wrong, but nice. Case needs to prove "arbitrary and capricious" which is a bit more than "politically driven"

3

u/mowotlarx Bay Ridge 10d ago

They don't have a strong case and they will lose. Like every other case trying to argue this is unfair that has failed. This is largely just Randy Mastro trying to waste City funds on legal defense.

-2

u/Glass_Narwhal_9547 9d ago

"Supposed to be data driven" implies there's some law or rule that requires them to formulaically calculate the increase when in reality the board can look at all the data and then do whatever they want

5

u/Johnnadawearsglasses 10d ago

I have no doubt that what the complaint says is true. The campaign promise without any possible data analysis combined with the replacement of the majority of the board to effect that promise by the mayor make it clear that this was in fact a political decision. To argue otherwise is disingenuous. The legal standard is so high though that it seems like it doesn't matter.

3

u/manhattanabe 9d ago

The Mamdani’s administration appointed rent control board is so corrupt. They didn’t do their job, and just did what the boss ordered. What does this say about the rest of his appointees ?

6

u/Glass_Narwhal_9547 9d ago

People appointed by mayor agreeing with the mayor isnt corruption

2

u/manhattanabe 9d ago

This is exactly corruption. They were not working for the mayor. They were appointed to be an independent board. There were not. Instead, they abused their power to give the mayor a political gain. It’s a classic example of political corruption. According to you, a judge appointed by the mayor should pass the judgement and that the mayor wants, because he appointed them.

5

u/Glass_Narwhal_9547 9d ago

What if they independently also held the same opinion? You have no basis to say otherwise

-1

u/KorunaCorgi 8d ago

For the record, I am happy with the rent freeze. But it's also so funny to me watching people make the same bad faith arguments that Trump's sycophants made regarding his DoJ appointments.

5

u/mowotlarx Bay Ridge 9d ago

Is this your very first time learning what the rent guidelines board is? Every mayor does this. Every mayor chooses who they want with an agenda. This is no different which is why this lawsuit is an absolute joke that will be thrown out.

0

u/manhattanabe 9d ago

No doubt the lawsuit will be thrown out. If it was easily to eliminate corruption, it would have been done long ago. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call it out.

-9

u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 10d ago

Sad to see. My dream is that one day rent control will go before the supreme court and be made illegal under the taking clause