New York City voters will elect a mayor on Tuesday, November 1, 2005.

Like all elections, this one will present tenants with an opportunity to press our concerns on all our candidates. Every politician becomes more receptive to voters when election time comes.

The candidates this time include: current Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Bronx Borough President Fred Ferrer, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, former City Council Member Tom Ognibene, political newcomer Steve Shaw, and U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Most of these candidates, including Bloomberg, Ferrer, Fields, Miller, and Weiner, are counting on tenant votes in order to win. What are they willing to do to earn our votes?

One area where a New York City mayor can do a great deal of good is home rule. New York state law currently forbids New York City from doing anything to regulate rents and evictions beyond continuing the existing rent control and rent stabilization system.

(It also forbids local government in Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland counties from doing anything except opting into the Emergency Tenant Protection Act.)

One reason that the state government has been able to get away with denying the city home rule powers over rents and evictions is that no New York mayor has ever truly fought for home rule.

Most recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg waged a tenacious campaign to win control over the city’s schools. He never missed an opportunity to use his bully pulpit to drive home the point that the city should be able to control its own educational policies.

But other than an offhand comment in June 2003 that the city would prefer to have control over rent laws, Bloomberg has ignored the issue of home rule for tenants’ protections.

There are many other areas where a protective mayor could do good – for example, by improving the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s enforcement of the Housing Maintenance Code, or by providing funds to preserve Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 housing.

For these reasons, the Tenants &Neighbors rent regulation leadership committee has identified several strategies to inject tenant issues into the mayoral race.

First, Tenants &Neighbors is organizing a Mayoral Candidate’s Night on Monday, April 4, where candidates will answer questions about housing and tenant issues. The Coalition for the Homeless and Metropolitan Council on Housing are co-sponsoring the event.

Second, Tenants &Neighbors joined with more than 100 other organizations to organize the Housing Here and Now rally at City Hall on February 2, and we are continuing to work with other groups on future activities to press mayoral candidates to support our program.

And third, we are working to pass a bill in the state legislature to restore home rule powers over rents and evictions to New York City, and extend home rule powers to local governments in Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland counties. The strategy to pass this bill includes pressure on Mayor Bloomberg, the New York City Council, and all mayoral candidates.

Home rule

Right now the New York City mayor and City Council are powerless to stop the phase out of rent regulation through vacancy decontrol. This is because of the state Urstadt Law, enacted in 1971, which prevents the city from making its own rent laws.

Enactment of this law was a direct blow to the powers of New York City, which had previously enjoyed full home rule, under which it enacted both the city rent control law and the city stabilization law. Consequently, city tenants must lobby legislators from upstate New York, where there is no rent regulation.

Since 1971 no mayor of New York City has fought to repeal this law and restore home rule over rent laws. Mayors have given lip service to the issue, but have not made a serious effort to win home rule back.

Even when his pal Governor George Pataki brought out his secret midnight bill on the last night of the 2003 legislative session, a bill that tightened Urstadt and stripped the city of its last vestiges of home rule, Bloomberg uttered not a word of protest. The bill passed the Senate a few hours before the members went home for the year, then passed the Assembly the following evening.

The new, even more punitive Urstadt Law prohibits the city from enacting any legislation at all dealing with rents and evictions, except for two powers that the law confers: the city can renew the city rent laws every three years if the citywide vacancy rate remains 5 percent or less, and the city can decontrol classes of housing accommodations.

Tenants have urged City Council Speaker Gifford Miller to pass a home rule message asking the legislature to pass state legislation to repeal Urstadt Law.