RGB, which regulates stabilized rental apartments in Manhattan, voted 5 to 4 on Tuesday to approve an increase in interest rates on one-year leases by 3.25% and 5% on two-year ones.
The move comes after rents in New York reached a record high in May for the fourth consecutive month. The average rent for an apartment in Manhattan rose to $ 4,000 a month in May, up 25 percent from a year earlier, according to a monthly report by brokerage firm Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. The Legal Aid Society condemned Tuesday’s vote, calling it “a shameful vote, probably pre-determined, to increase the rents of our most vulnerable neighbors,” the group said in a statement.
The non-profit legal aid provider said the decision mainly affects tenants from colorful communities who have been affected by the pandemic and inflation and are “barely coping”.
Rental increases for stabilized rental apartments will begin in the fall.
CNN Business’s Anna Bahni contributed to this report
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