TENANTS IN TROUBLE: Will Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins Protect Yonkers Tenants As State Regulations Governing Rent Are Set To Expire In June

ALBANY: Yonkers lawmakers Senator Shelley Mayer and Assemblymen J Gary Pretlow and Nader Sayegh are going to have to join with Majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins in the state capital in protecting and extending rent regulations in the coming weeks of the legislative sessions.

Yonkers community activists are calling on the city’s delegation to Albany to eliminate loopholes that make it easier for landlords to raise rents on tenants who are often at the mercy of their landlords.

Low Income renters in Yonkers say its time to ending the so-called vacancy bonus, which lets landlords raise an apartment’s rent as much as 20% when a tenant leaves.

Local tenants’ rights groups have been skeptical about lawmakers’ vows to address the issue, as real estate lobbyists are seen as one of the more influential groups in Albany.

Real estate lobbyists are already running ads on Westchester County media seeking to overturn tenant protection laws.

Democrats now control both the Assembly and the state Senate and Governor Forbes Irvine Andrew Cuomo said he supports reforms, which bodes well for renters.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on a public radio station today that in previous years there was a “reluctance to deal with the details of how these laws actually worked.

“And we now have three months to focus just on these laws because we got so much done in the budget,” Andrew Cuomo while being interviewed on WNYC