Citing Stuy Town Experiences in Call for More Rent Administration Office Funding

At the February 4th Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Housing, I asked New York State Homes and Community Renewal Commissioner Darryl Towns about the need for increased funding for the Office of Rent Administration to prevent its backlog from continuing to harm tenants. I cited recent experiences at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village (ST/PCV), where applications for rent reductions for reduced services languished for nearly a year before the tenants association announced last month that a settlement had been reached. Last fall, ST/PCV tenants were hit with five MCI orders in a matter of weeks, even though the landlord had applied for some of them years before they were processed by the rent administration office. While Commissioner Towns stopped short of calling for more funding for the Office of Rent Administration, he acknowledged that ST/PCV is an area that needs more attention and he pledged to continue conversations with me and State Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh about how to meet the complex’s challenges. You can see video of my exchange with Commissioner Towns below.