The city’s Rent Guidelines Board made history Monday night — enacting the lowest rent hikes since it was formed nearly half a century ago, even as it rejected a freeze recommended by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
In a surprising act of independence, the board voted 5-4 to raise rents on nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments by 1 percent for new one-year leases and 2.75 percent for two-year leases.
The slight increases were proposed by RGB member Steven Flax, a de Blasio appointee who is vice president for community development at M&T Bank.
“It costs money to run buildings and I do believe that my proposal is sincerely a historic change,” Flax said at a raucous meeting at Cooper Union in the East Village.
He conceded, “It is not a political win for the mayor.”
Flax disclosed that he had come under “intense pressure” from both sides — “some of it dirty and some of it principled.” In the end, he explained, “I have to vote my conscience. And I have to say this moment is a nightmare.”
Furious tenants, witnessing an unprecedented freeze slipping away, began screaming that Flax was a “sellout.”
The mayor sought to make the best of the setback, saying he was “heartened” that the hike was a historic low. Since its creation in 1969, the RGB has never passed increases of less than 2 percent and 4 percent.
Only hours before the meeting, de Blasio told reporters at a Queens bill signing that his predecessor, Mike Bloomberg, had been too generous to landlords.
“We need a course correction — a one-time action to clearly rectify the mistakes of the past,” de Blasio said, urging a freeze.
Last year, under Bloomberg, the board raised rents by 4 percent and 7.75 percent.
Jack Freund, a landlords representative at the Rent Stabilization Association, had warned that a rent freeze would have a chilling effect on the development of affordable housing.
“It can’t have anything but a negative effect,” he said. “The rental market is going to go into a tailspin, there will be less investment, there will be fewer jobs generated, there will be fewer taxes generated.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio danced around the issue of whether he was going to raise the rent on his own apartments, which are not covered by the guidelines.
“I have a different situation by law,” he said, adding: “It depends . . . Sometimes there’s no increase, sometimes there is.”