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Kingston Rent Decrease - Coggle Diagram
Kingston Rent Decrease
TENSION: Tenants taking it into their own hands to decrease rent is at once an assertion of their human right to adequate shelter and a violation of their landlords’ property rights.
Key Topics/Lenses
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Human Rights: Shelter being a human right, and housing being such a personal issue complicates this issue. When we talk about affordable housing, it's not just negotiating another commercial item- people's homes and livelihoods are at stake.
Economy: Factors in the market that feed into certain areas suffering from higher prices, and how companies respond to demands for housing
Object of Analysis: Kingston took advantage of New York State's "Emergency Tenant Protection Act" that allows for rent stabilization by the government when apartment vacancy rate is lower than 5%. The city selected a board of nine residents that decided to not just freeze rent increases, but to decrease it by 15% (first time rent decreased using this method in US). This caused landlords to sue, arguing that the board had overstepped its powers. Rent stabilization was upheld by judge, but not decrease.
Landlords' Argument
Rent increases help fund repairs, improvements to buildings
Personal profit, financial wellbeing
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Rent regulations would make investors less interested in housing market, leading to housing scarcity
Tenant's Argument
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Rent hikes are unjustified, seeing as none of the money has gone to repairing utilities, making the apartments livable
Rent regulation should be seen the same as regulating an other essential good/service: milk, electricity, etc
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