or more than 50 years, New York City’s so-called rent stabilization law has been squatting on the books and causing trouble.U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law despite property owners’ strong arguments that the mandate constituted both a per se physical taking and regulatory taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This month,represents a startling threat to private property rights.
The rent stabilization law also allows tenants to renew the lease in perpetuity, allows tenants to transfer their leasing rights forever to others, and forces owners to either find tenants alternative rent-stabilized housing or compensate them—sometimes to the tune of Rather than a mere regulation of private property, this legalizes permanent occupation of private property against the wishes of the owner—depriving the owner of the “right to exclude,” a right described by the: “Given the central importance to property ownership of the right to exclude, it comes as little surprise that the Court has long treated government-authorized physical invasions as takings requiring just compensation.”U.S.
Housing affordability is a very real problem. But truly expanding affordability requires confronting the roots of the problem; namely, policies that make it difficult if not impossible to build more housing.