The Rent Guidelines Board is preemptively cracking down on protests ahead of a highly anticipated vote next week at which the panel could raise rates for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized households by as much as 7%.
In a memo released Tuesday, the board announced a venue change for the final vote next Wednesday as well as a ban on “items that are reasonably likely to disrupt the proceedings, such as noisemakers and drums” — a move ridiculed by advocates.
“The rule against noisemakers is as pointless as it has been year after year,” said Esteban Giron of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights Tenant Union.
“We don’t need noisemakers when we have hundreds of tenants chanting and stomping and clapping. Telling working-class Black and Brown tenants to politely allow ourselves and our neighbors to be evicted is shameful.”
The ban comes after a raucous preliminary vote last month when a number of progressive politicians and tenant activists loudly took to the stage with chants, banners and demands for a rent rollback. Attendees were able to make plenty of noise on their own, clapping, chanting and drumming on their wooden seats to contribute to the din.
The panel endorsed hikes of 2% to 5% for one-year leases and 4% to 7% increases for two-year leases in a 5-to-4 vote.
Board Chairman Nestor Davidson expressed “strong concerns” following the meeting, saying in a letter to the mayor that the protest “went beyond the bounds of public participation and created a chaotic environment that raised serious concerns for me about public safety.”
The landlord group the Rent Stabilization Association decried what they described as “intimidation and fear tactics” at the meeting and advised their members not to participate in-person at recent public hearings.
“This will guarantee that their testimony will not be disrupted, silenced and drowned out,” Michael Tobman, the association’s director of membership and communications, said in a statement. “All voices…
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