The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington.US Supreme Court Justices Pass on Landlord Challenge to NY Rent Stabilization
The high court declined the petitions for review of a Second Circuit decision without further explanation. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the only member of the court who said they would have looked at the constitutional challenge spearheaded by landlords. Selendy Gay and tenants' rights groups defended the measure.
November 12, 2024 at 06:50 PM
2 minute read
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to review a Second Circuit decision upholding New York’s rent stabilization laws against a constitutional attack from landlords.
The justices declined the petitions for review without offering their legal rationale, as is customary, with only Justice Neil Gorsuch remarking that he would have granted the review.
The Legal Aid Society, Legal Services New York and Selendy Gay PLLC, which represented the New York City-based tenant advocacy groups, New York Tenants & Neighbors and Community Voices Heard, hailed the high court decision that left in place the law.
“New York’s Rent Stabilization Law has provided affordable housing for millions of New Yorkers, preventing displacement and combating homelessness, and we will continue to challenge any and all efforts aimed at eroding the well-established and lawful protections that the communities we serve rely on,” the organizations said in a statement.
Enacted in 1969, the Rent Stabilization Act created a system regulating rent for the roughly two million people in New York City who live in buildings that contain six or more units and were built between February 1, 1947, and March 10, 1969. The New York State Senate later built on those protections with the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
That amendment to the Rent Stabilization Act sparked at least five legal challenges from real estate organizations and landlords, including the current cases from G-Max Management Inc. and Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and Putnam Counties Inc., which own properties in New York City and Westchester County. They argued that the restrictions violated their Fifth Amendment protections against unlawful “takings,” by restricting their ability to take their properties off the rental market and use them for personal use.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas dismissed both cases in September 2021, which the Second Circuit upheld in March. The restrictions on landlords are not unconditional requirements and the challengers hadn’t shown that the restrictions are universally negative, the circuit court had said.
Counsel for the G-Max plaintiffs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but Dorothy Finger, who represented plaintiffs in Building and Realty Institute, voiced her disappointment with the failed petition for review.
“We’re gratified that at least Gorsuch had heard us. Too bad he hadn’t persuaded the others,” she said.
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