Here's the latest in a case we've been following, one of the multiple challenges to New York's latest ratcheting up of rent control.
We think the Questions Presented spell out the issues pretty well:
New York has implemented the most sweeping and onerous rent control provisions the United States has ever seen in its Rent Stabilization Laws and accompanying regulations (“the RSL”). As recently amended, the RSL makes New York’s once “temporary” rent stabilization regime permanent for over one million apartments. Petitioners are owners of apartment buildings regulated by the RSL. The RSL expropriates a definitional feature of Petitioners’ real property—the right to exclude—by granting their tenants a perpetual right to renew their leases. The RSL closes off all viable exit options for Petitioners to change the use of their property and thus avoid RSL regulation. These provisions, when combined with the RSL’s ceiling on the rents that landlords can collect, have ensured that Petitioners cannot earn a just and reasonable rate of return. The RSL has dramatically reduced the economic value of Petitioners’ property beyond any reasonable expectation. Nevertheless, the Second Circuit held the RSL did not effect any taking of Petitioners’ property without just compensation.The questions presented are:(1) Does the RSL effect a per se physical taking by expropriating Petitioners’ right to exclude?(2) Does the RSL effect a confiscatory taking by depriving Petitioners of a just and reasonable return?(3) Does the RSL effect a regulatory taking as an unconstitutional use restriction of Petitioners’ property?
Stay tuned here, or follow along on the Court's docket.
Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, 335-7 LLC v. City of New York, No. 22-1170 (U.S. May 30, 2023) by RHT on Scribd
