Four big takeaways from New York’s legislative season
Jesse Kramer
The first legislative session with Albany’s new political landscape wrapped up in June. Low-income New Yorkers saw many important wins, spanning housing, criminal justice, healthcare, and consumer protection.
While the state legislature did not adopt everything on the table that would benefit low-income New Yorkers, what was enacted will help millions of New Yorkers gain access to a more secure economic future. Here are some more details on the biggest victories of this legislative session.
Stronger Rent Laws and Tenant Protections
The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act stands out as the biggest victory of the legislative session. This bill pulled together most of what advocates had initially been calling for in a package of nine separate bills dubbed “Universal Rent Control.”
Rent regulation is a critical lifeline for low-income New Yorkers. Not only does it keep rents affordable, but it also mediates the severe power imbalance between landlords and tenants.
Over the last 25 years, however, nearly 300,000 apartments had been deregulated as new loopholes and exceptions to the law were introduced. You can read more about how these loopholes undermined tenant protections in our analysis of actual rental histories.
Among many victories for tenants in the new law, here are a few we want to highlight:
- Eliminating the vacancy bonus. Under the old law, landlords could increase the rent by 20% every time a new tenant moved in. Getting rid of the vacancy bonus means landlords will always have to abide by the Rent Guidelines Board increases, whether they’re renewing an existing tenant’s lease or signing a new one.
- Curtailing IAIs and MCIs. Landlords systematically exploited loopholes for IAIs and MCIs, renovations to individual apartments and entire buildings, respectively, to increase rent beyond the legal limit based on capital expenditures. With very little oversight, landlords would fraudulently inflate costs of labor and materials to produce bigger rent increases.
The new law makes rent increases from IAIs and MCIs temporary and reduces them to a level in line with the normal return on investment.
- Making preferential rents permanent. While rent regulation provides a legal cap to an apartment’s rent, landlords always have the option to rent out the unit for less. The lower rate is called a “preferential rent.”
This seems good on the surface. However, under the old law, landlords could jack the rent back up to the legal limit upon a lease renewal. Now preferential rents are the permanent base rent for an entire tenancy.
- Removing the high-rent vacancy deregulation. Previously, a rent regulated apartment would become permanently deregulated when its rent reached an annually adjusted threshold. Most recently, that amount was $2,775.
- There’s no sunset on this law. For decades, the rent laws would come up for renewal every few years, which is why the state legislature was able to chip away at tenant protections bit by bit. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act is a permanent law that will not require any renewals.
Expansion of Marijuana Decriminalization
Marijuana legalization fell short, but the state legislature passed a bill with new measures to expand marijuana decriminalization, which Governor Cuomo is expected to sign. Highlights of the new law include:
- Automatic expungement for past marijuana convictions for parts of the penal code that are now decriminalized.
- The fine for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana is now a maximum of $50 instead of $100.
- Possession of one to two ounces of marijuana now carries a maximum fine of $200 instead of jail time.
While not legalizing marijuana is a disappointment to CSS and many advocates, the introduction of automatic expungement into New York State law cannot be overlooked. We’ve been fighting for comprehensive expungement measures in New York that go far beyond marijuana convictions, and this is an important step toward broadening that conversation.
For more on important changes regarding criminal justice, watch our Reentry Roundtable panel featuring experts and advocates from CSS, Legal Aid Society, Legal Action Center, and VOCAL-NY.
Protection for Health Consumers
A handful of new bills will provide new protections to health consumers and close loopholes in previous laws.
- Insurance companies can no longer change drug formularies in the middle of the year.
- Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are now required to get a license to operate in New York.
- Pharmacists can no longer be required by contract to withhold information about alternative medications.
- Health consumers gained further protection from high insurance premiums as emergency hospital charges are now subject to third-party arbitration.
You can hear more from our HCFANY friends on the importance of these new laws, as well some of the disappointment this legislative session regarding healthcare.
Assistance for New Yorkers with Student Loans
The state legislature approved funding for the Student Loan Consumer Assistance Program (SLCAP), a comprehensive statewide program run by CSS that’s designed to tackle the serious problem of student debt.
SLCAP will be a free helpline providing assistance borrowers address their student loan debt issues.
Across New York State, 2.4 million people are burdened by a combined $90 billion in student loan debt, and predatory lenders often make the repayment process a mess for borrowers to navigate. SLCAP will provide immediate relief to borrowers in need of assistance.