New Yorkers in the city’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized homes caught a break Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a pair of cases challenging the state’s rent stabilization system — while leaving the door open to reconsidering the issue at some point in the future.
The lawsuits were brought by two landlord groups that argued that New York’s rent stabilization laws are unconstitutional and essentially “grant tenants and their successors an indefinite, infinitely renewable lease terminable only for reasons outside of the landlord’s control,” as the decision put it. Lower courts had also previously ruled against them on the matter.
It comes after the Supreme Court rejected similar cases challenging New York rent stabilization in October.
But Justice Clarence Thomas, a staunch conservative, hinted in a statement released alongside Tuesday’s order that the issue of rent stabilization could come up again.
“The constitutionality of regimes like New York City’s is an important and pressing question,” Thomas wrote, adding that “in an appropriate future case, we should grant certiorari to address this important question.”
The rejection nonetheless represents a setback for New York landlords, who have turned to the courts following the passage of additional tenant protection measures in 2019 they say put owners on the back foot.
One of the petitioners dismissed Tuesday previously said New York’s rent stabilization regulations “amount to the most onerous rent control provisions the United States has ever seen.”
The Community Housing Improvement Program and Rent Stabilization Association, two landlords organizations that had their own challenge denied in October, released a joint statement in response to Tuesday’s news.
“This was not terribly surprising. We do expect there will be many more challenges to this law, which remains irrationally punitive,” they said. “It is now clear that the future of rent-stabilized buildings is in the hands of the state government. Thousands of buildings housing hundreds of thousands of tenants are in financial distress. Without action, the homes of many hardworking New Yorkers will deteriorate.”
New York City’s Rent Stabilization Law dates to 1969, when rents were on the rise, and has been updated several times since. Today, about 2 million of the city’s residents live in rent-stabilized housing, protecting them from steep increases and giving them the right to renew their leases.
“Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court declining to review the 2nd Circuit’s well-reasoned dismissals of these lawsuits is in line with well-established precedent and puts an end to these cases attacking the legal protections depended upon by a million New York households amid an ongoing housing crisis,” the Legal Aid Society said in a statement along with other tenant groups that had defended rent stabilization in court.
Rent-stabilized homes have become especially coveted amid skyrocketing city rents and a historic scarcity of available apartments.
