Gov. Cuomo and legislative negotiators are hours from a deal on a strong new rent law protecting New York City tenants.
The agreement, expected to come as soon as today, will raise the rental threshold under which apartments can be decontrolled to about $2,500 a month — up from $2,000 — and boost the maximum annual income for tenants in regulated apartments from $175,000 to about $200,000, a source familiar with the negotiations said.
The monthly rent figures are for an apartment of any size, and the income is based on the annual amount brought in by the entire household.
“What had been a long logjam has been broken and constructive conversations on an agreement are taking place,” a source close to the Cuomo administration told The Post yesterday.
“The governor met late last week with representatives from the Rent Stabilization Association and the Real Estate Board and basically read them the riot act and told them that there will be a stronger new rent law or else,” the source continued.
The source said the governor bluntly told groups that he possessed “emergency powers” that could allow him to transfer responsibility for rent regulations to the City Council, considered an enemy of landlord interests.
Gov. Cuomo also told lawmakers that he would keep them in session throughout the summer unless an agreement on rent laws could be reached.
The two big landlord groups — major contributors to the Republicans, who control the Senate — had been insisting for months that current rent regulations remain unchanged, as they’ve been for the past eight years.
However, Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) countered that rent protections must be strengthened, with Silver linking the measure to approval of Cuomo’s plan to cap suburban and upstate property taxes.
Still to be decided is how long the new rent law, and a new property-tax cap, will remain in effect.
*
There’s serious talk yet again among senior Republican senators about replacing Majority Leader Dean Skelos, whose bumbling performance last week on the same-sex marriage and rent issues led even some of his longtime allies to question whether he’s up to the job.
Opposition to Skelos is led by Niagara County Sen. George Maziarz and a handful of other upstate senators, many of whom want Deputy Majority Leader Thomas Libous, of Binghamton, as their new leader.
Skelos mishandled the rent issue and embarrassed Cuomo Friday when he awkwardly agreed to temporarily extend city rent regulations, then recessed the Senate without doing so, and then reconvened the Senate and passed the measure after Cuomo threatened to call a special Father’s Day legislative session.
He also oddly referred to highly charged discussions on same-sex marriage as dealing with “marriage equality,” a politically correct phrase promoted by gay-marriage supporters.
“A majority of his [GOP] conference is opposed to gay marriage . . . so why would Skelos basically spit in their faces by referring to ‘marriage equality’?” asked a prominent Republican.