{"id":1227,"date":"2006-06-28T09:27:52","date_gmt":"2006-06-28T17:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/06\/and_thats_how_the_annual_celebration_of_stabilization_day_came_to_pass.html"},"modified":"2006-06-28T09:27:52","modified_gmt":"2006-06-28T17:27:52","slug":"and_thats_how_t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/06\/and_thats_how_t.html","title":{"rendered":"And That’s How The Annual Celebration Of “Stabilization Day” Came To Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rent Guidelines Board’s annual hearing to decide whether and\/or how much to raise rent on rent-stabilized apartments functions as a benign ritual for tenants to take out their frustrations about rising housing costs<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Amid total pandemonium, the Rent Guidelines Board last night voted to hike rent-stabilized rents by 4.25 percent for one-year leases and 7.25 percent for two-year renewals — infuriating tenants who said they no longer want to participate in the annual process.<\/p>\n

The 5-4 vote came after more than four hours of mayhem, with more than 300 angry tenants, armed with noisemakers, drowning out virtually every word uttered by RGB Chairman Marvin Markus.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

While protesting tenants were unhappy with last night’s outcome, they were pleased with their disruption. “We did a fantastic job,” exulted Jumaane Williams, executive director of the Tenants & Neighbors coalition. “We shut it down longer than it’s ever been shut down before.”<\/p>\n

Tenant leaders said they decided months ago to disrupt the annual rent-setting meeting because they considered the deliberations “a sham” that always produced a pre-ordained result.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The meeting at Cooper Union was chaotic even by RGB standards, where screams and chants from the audience are routine.<\/p>\n

Markus, branded a sellout by tenant leaders, was interrupted so loudly and so often that he called an unprecedented 2 1\/2-hour recess at 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

But that had no impact.<\/p>\n

Tenant activists ordered pizza and bottled water and were waiting in full force when Markus returned just before 9 p.m.<\/p>\n

As a phalanx of cops stood guard, Markus tried four times to restart the meeting — only to give up as one uproar after another drowned out his words.<\/p>\n

The fifth time, Markus simply read a resolution into the microphone. Virtually no one off the stage could hear him.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ll keep you posted about next June’s Stabilization Day, which will be marked by a boisterous pot-clanged march down Fifth Avenue, a peaceful protest in front of Bed, Bath & Beyond and an after-party at an establishment to be determined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rent Guidelines Board’s annual hearing to decide whether and\/or how much to raise rent on rent-stabilized apartments functions as a benign ritual for tenants to take out their frustrations about rising housing costs: Amid total pandemonium, the Rent Guidelines Board last night voted to hike rent-stabilized rents by 4.25 percent for one-year leases and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class_war","category-culturalanthropological","category-real_estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}