Ossining receives proposals to study possible rent stabilization

OSSINING - Officials will soon choose a consultant as they weigh whether the village enacts rent stabilization.

Ossining has been exploring whether to join nearly 20 communities in the program in which the Westchester County Rent Guidelines Board decides yearly whether to increase rent and, if so, by what percentage for the county’s 25,000 rent-stabilized apartments.

Two consultants have submitted proposals to study village properties that have six or more units and were built before 1974. If the study find less than a 5-percent vacancy rate — under a provision of state law — the village Board of Trustees could consider a vote to allow the rent limits.

Village officials are poised at their next meeting to take a vote on whether to hire the Collective for Community, Culture and Environment, which is affiliated with the Pratt Institute in New York City, to do the study. The other consultant that submitted a proposal is Lisa Sturtevant, based in Alexandria, Maryland.

The study and compiling of a report is expected to take about two months. The collective would, in part, use Pratt Institute students to study the issue.

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“There is familiarity with the rent regulation system both in New York City and in the area,” Stuart Kahan, the village’s lawyer, said of the collective. “Their intention is to do their initial contact by telephone; there will also be some on-site visits to make sure there is statistical validity to what they’re doing.”

Rent stabilization draws its share of supporters and opponents. What allows municipalities the option is the state Emergency Tenants Protection Act, or ETPA, of 1974, that set up county rent guideline boards to set rent limits in a given year.

A municipality can decide whether to adopt the law and set its own minimum number of units for a building to qualify for rent limits. White Plains, for instance, allows rent stabilization for a building of six units, while in Croton-on-Hudson, it only kicks in if a building has at least 50 units.

Sturtevant, the other consultant to submit a proposal to Ossining, has done housing studies in New York and elsewhere on impacts of rent controls on both sides of the issue, Kahan said, but there was a sense “she would probably have to learn somewhat about ETPA.”

At the recent trustees meeting, Trustee Quantel Bazemore expressed support for awarding the contract to the collective. Details on how much the collective would be paid as part of the contract were not immediately available. 

Trustee Rika Levin also seemed supportive of the collective to do the study, but village officials are going to check into some things she wanted clarified, including whether the collective would subcontract some of its work.

Levin said she thinks the collective is the better choice, but "just want(s) to make sure we're getting what we think we're getting."