New Player Enters Debate Over Vacant Rent Stabilized Apartments, & What Else Happened This Week in Housing

Unlock Our Housing NYC, a new nonprofit founded by property owner advocate Jay Martin, says there is common ground for landlords and tenants on one issue: the tens of thousands of vacant rent stabilized units in the city.

Can tenants and landlords just get along?

A landlord-backed group says they’ll put it to the test. Unlock Our Housing NYC, a new nonprofit founded by property owner advocate Jay Martin, says there’s common ground for landlords and tenants on one issue: the tens of thousands of vacant rent stabilized apartments in the city.

In the midst of a housing shortage, the vacancies have frustrated landlords of rent stabilized units, who say that their buildings don’t have the money to fix and lease out the apartments, and tenants, who bemoan the lost affordable housing. The average rent collected in a rent stabilized apartment was $1,681 in 2024, according to data from the Rent Guidelines Board.

“These apartments are vacant, and that we think that they should not be, and that people need to be living in them. And for that to be solved, then you have to address the problem in the first place and acknowledge that it exists,” said Martin.

Indeed, both tenant and landlord groups have raised the alarm about the number of vacant rent stabilized units, which approaches nearly 60,000, according to some estimates, though the true number is hotly debated and hard to measure.

But when it comes to Martin’s new group, tenant advocates aren’t buying it.

“Jay Martin has always represented landlords, and their line has not changed significantly over the years,” said Sue Susman, a member of the Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing. “Their line has been: we need more money to repair these apartments and put them back on the market.”

The group is agnostic about the right solution, Martin said, instead focusing on raising awareness of the issue.

“I have my personal opinions, and certainly I have my opinions in my prior role,” said Martin, who said he is no longer a registered lobbyist and will not be engaging with lawmakers about policy. “But I can have the conversation with nonprofits who are seeing the same issues in their portfolio. I can have the conversation with tenants.”

Martin, who used to head the New York Apartment Association, has been a frequent critic of the 2019 rent stabilization laws, which limited landlords’ ability to remove units from rent regulation. He and other owners say the laws have made it too hard for landlords to generate revenue to renovate and lease vacant units currently sitting empty.

Susman and other tenant advocates say landlord concern is a “shell game” disguised to get legislative changes in Albany. They suspect landlords want to reestablish vacancy bonuses, which allowed owners to hike rents for stabilized units when tenancies ended—policies that advocates say incentivized landlords to push tenants out.

“They want to go back to the world before 2019, which was a time when we saw incredible displacement of working-class people across the state. Rents were rising, tenant harassment was rampant, and I think a lot of the policies that were in place at that time are what has gotten us to the housing crisis that so many people are facing,” said Sumathy Kumar, director of Housing Justice for All, a statewide tenant advocacy group.

Martin’s group was initially funded by property owners, he said, but will take donations from anyone. A Wednesday launch featured a press release with quotes from tenants who Martin says signed on with the group after Unlock Our Housing knocked on their doors (only tenants’ first names and last initial were made available, and efforts to reach them before press time were unsuccessful).

The new group is not the only sign pointing towards a fight over rent stabilization in Albany next year.

Martin is also backing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reelection through an independent expenditure committee called Leadership for New York. The group, headed by Martin, received nearly $1 million dollars from Better Housing Now, another independent expenditure committee associated with Kenny Burgos, the current head of the New York Apartment Association. The transaction was first reported by City & State in August.

“The amount of money that landlords seem to be able to spend to try and convince renters that rent hikes are actually going to be good for them continues to astound me,” said Kumar.

The next legislative session in Albany begins in January.

“I’ve had enough conversations with with people in around Albany that there seems to be growing consensus that there will be a housing discussion, and I’m hopeful that this issue and our advocacy in addressing the problem becomes makes it part of that conversation,” said Martin.

Here’s what else happened this week in housing—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

• The City Council approved John Mangin to chair the Board of Standards and Appeals, following a tense nomination hearing where some criticized him as too dismissive to local residents’ concerns about new development.
• Tenants at three Crown Heights buildings sat through a nervy auction where their rent-stabilized apartments were up for sale. Their preferred buyer, a small-town New Jersey mayor, promised to preserve them; they hope he’ll turn them into cooperative affordable apartments.
• The outdoor space at NYCHA’s Harborview Terrace Houses got a $4 million makeover, thanks to a public-private partnership model that advocates hope can help invest in other public housing campuses.
• Can New York City have a right to housing? Tenant organizer Samuel Stein explores that question in his new book, and spoke to City Limits about it.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

• The Mamdani administration released a trove of government documents that suggest city leaders misled New Yorkers about the health risks of returning to lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks, the New York Times reports.
• Here’s what $4,200 a month—the city’s current median rent—gets you in each borough, via Gothamist.
• The city demolished a family home in a flood-plagued Queens neighborhood that was in danger of collapsing. But the owners say they’re unsure of what to do next, as hopes of a city buyout have not materialized, The City Reporter reports.
• Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed light-rail linking Brooklyn and Queens could mean a housing boost along the neighborhoods it connects, Streetsblog reports.
• A new bill wants to crack down on apartment listings that use AI-edited photos, Secret NYC reports.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact [email protected]. To reach the editor, contact [email protected]

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.