Rent Control - YouTube

ED GLAESER: Now, the other major policy that New York is quite famous for for

fighting against high prices is rent control.

Fairly universally denigrated by economists.

But again, it serves some of the other functions that you're talking about in

terms of creating some integration in the city.

INGRID ELLEN: At this point, there may be 20,000 units in New York City that are sort of

governed by the strict, the old-fashioned strict rent control system.

GLAESER: So what's the difference between strict rent control and rent stabilization?

ELLEN: So the major difference is just in terms of the allowances

in terms of increasing rent.

So basically rent stabilized apartments are generally

given a rent increase every year, but it's governed by the Rent Guidelines Board,

which basically is supposed to take a look at sort of what's happened

to operating costs, and try to- GLAESER: And

are they allowed more freedom if you change tenant, in terms of raising rent?

ELLEN: Yes, and you're allowed a vacancy deal allowance.

And in fact, if you then make individual apartment repairs,

you're allowed to increase rents.

There's also a luxury decontrol, so once the rent gets to a certain level,

if it then becomes vacant, then it can leave rent stabilization all together.

And if you look at the numbers, I mean, I feel like part of my

response to the sort of controversy about, and it's one of the third rails of

housing policy in New York City, is that it's not, outside of Manhattan,

it's just not having as big an effect on the market, I think, as people think.

I mean, really,

the rent stabilized rents are not that different from, maybe they're $200.

That's at 1,100 versus $1,300 in terms of sort of the median

rents of the market rate rentals versus the rent stabilized rentals.

GLAESER: Right, now I mean, just to go through it, we probably should

just say the things that economists have often hated about rent control, right?

ELLEN: Yeah. GLAESER: So first of all there's

the supply effect, right?

So presumably this means that you wanna build less.

Typically the rules were written so

that you didn't have rent stabilized prices on new units being built.

ELLEN: That's right.

GLAESER: So that's one way that the rules try to avoid that problem.

You also have the supply effect if the units are converted

from rentals to cooperatives, or then condominiums.

And we certainly saw this in the post-war period, right?

I mean, a lot of even the grandest buildings on Park Avenue were built as

rents, and then converted laboriously to an owner occupied structure.

Then there's the quality effect.

ELLEN: Right. GLAESER: And that, we think,

is probably less important in New York today

but certainly if we think back to our youth in the '70s there were a lot of

those grand buildings, particularly on the West Side, which were rent controlled and

the owners had decided it just didn't make any sense to maintain them.

And then there's this sort of more, the issue about

the allocation of the apartments, which is an area where I've worked.

Where my favorite anecdote on this is from Ken Auletta's "The Streets Are Paved With

Gold," where he talks about Nat Sherman, the tobacconist to the world, is living in

this, I think it's a Central Park West apartment, which he's paying nothing for.

And he says, I think it's fair because I use it so rarely.

ELLEN: Right. GLAESER: [LAUGH] And of course,

what that means is he's only getting that much value out of it.

And that may well be true.

But there's somebody else who'd get a whole lot more value out of it

Because of rent control he can't monetize this benefit he has.

ELLEN: And I think, I would say two things to that.

I mean, I think the last point is the one that troubles me the most, right?

Is the fact that there's no means testing in rent stabilized units.

So there's no mechanism through which we can assure that the people who really need

those apartments are getting those low rent apartments.

And so it creates this sort of bifurcated

housing market where you've got the lucky and you've got the unlucky, right?

You've got lucky who live in, are able to get a rent stabilized unit.

But like I said, its not as though those

differences are as extreme as people think anymore.

It also is true that, on average, rents for the tenants living in rent stabilized

apartments are lower income than those living in market rate apartments.

So, but that being said, right?

And so I think people exaggerate sort of through these anecdotes.

Think that everyone who lives in a rent stabilized apartment is a billionaire.

GLAESER: Right.

ELLEN: That's clearly not true.

On the other hand, I do think that my biggest concern about

rent stabilization is the lack of means testing.

GLAESER: Now some of these issues about means testing often come up in the rise of

the affordable housing and it's created by inclusionary zoning as well.

So this has been a new phenomenon.

Tell us how this works.

And you can imagine two effects on affordable housing.

One of which is you're actually creating some tangible units.

The second which is it is still a tax on development.

And we dont get more development usually by taxing it.

ELLEN: Right, right. So

we've had kind of two versions of this in New York.

One is in a voluntary program where basically builders were incentivized to

add in affordable housing units through a density bonus.

So they could build higher, they could build more if they included some

share of 20% of their units affordable.

And then, more recently, Di Blasio has, the Di Blasio administration has proposed,

and it's been passed, a mandatory inclusionary housing

program that basically kicks in with any kind of rezoning.

And so, in that case, basically, a developer is required to

include a certain number, a certain share, and

there's different formula depending on- GLAESER: How are those means tested, if at all?

ELLEN: Those are means tested, those are means tested.

Again, it varies depending on the rules and what the income level is targeted to.

There's sort of a menu of different options.

But those are means tested.

ELLEN: And will they be continually?

So if you get in at a lower income then become richer, do you have to move out or

pay more?

ELLEN: No, but it's sort of on re-occupancy.

GLAESER: I see. ELLEN: They would be means tested.

One reason that I think that place-based subsidized housing may

actually be important is, one, is that it provides some level of,

it locks in some economic diversity to neighborhoods that may be especially

important in cities like New York that are seeing rapidly rising rents.

And but for that place-based subsidized housing,

we would likely see these cities become basically islands of the wealthy.

GLAESER: So rent control in New York feels very different than rent control in a declining

city like New Orleans?

ELLEN: Absolutely, absolutely.

And I think that it's not even clear that sort of just kind of housing voucher only

approach would work that well in New York given the sort of the market pressures.

GLAESER: Because you would push the vouchers off to the edges.

ELLEN: Yeah, that's right.

And I think that ultimately, I mean, I think that what I worry about is that in,

that a lot of what the gives New York the vitality that we all love about it

is the diversity of the residents of New York, is the diversity of the population.

GLAESER: So in sense,

we like historic preservation because it provides a diversity of aesthetics,

we the like the diversity that's created by these various interventions in

the housing market in terms of the people who live in New York.

ELLEN: Yeah, that's exactly right.

GLAESER: Wonderful.

Thank you. ELLEN: Okay.