Partnership for New York City Opposes Commercial Rent Stabilization

“There are multiple issues placing hardship on neighborhood retailers, most of which are not solved by commercial rent stabilization,” said Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City. “Competition from many sources, most notably online retail activity, has cut into the revenues of brick and mortar retail businesses. New mandates imposed by local government have increased the costs of running a business in the city. Changing customer demands have undermined businesses, such as tobacco and newspaper vendors, that have failed to update their product lines. Rising rents are definitely a factor in business closures, but rent increases are at least partly due to escalating city real estate tax assessments that are passed along to tenants. The Council appears to have settled on one causal factor contributing to small business hardship, which is the presumption of landlord greed. This may satisfy their political agenda, but it will not solve the complex problems created by a rapidly changing economy and ill-considered government impositions on the marketplace.”