The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a major property rights challenge to rent control laws in New York City and elsewhere that give tenants the right to stay for many years in lower-than-market apartments. market.
A group of New York landlords had sued over the laws, arguing that the combination of rent regulation and long-term occupancy violated the constitutional prohibition on taking private property for public use.
The judges had been considering whether to accept the appeal since late September. Only Justice Clarence Thomas issued a partial dissent Tuesday to dismiss the case.
The conservative judge said that the “constitutionality of regimes like New York City's is an important and pressing issue,” but that the landlords had not presented evidence that they had been prevented “from evicting actual tenants for particular reasons.” .
A ruling in the case could have directly affected one million rental units in New York City and could have had a significant impact in California as well.
The California Apartment Association. had urged the justices to hear the New York case, saying that “many of its members are located in local jurisdictions subject to rent control laws, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, Santa Monica, Berkeley, Pasadena, Alameda and Beverly Hills.”
Rent control laws have previously been upheld on the grounds that they are regulations on property, not a government expropriation of property. But the court's conservative majority has recently shown interest in strengthening property rights.
In 2021, the Supreme Court struck down a California law that authorized union organizers to visit farms and agricultural facilities to recruit new members for the United Farm Workers.
In a 6-3 ruling in that case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said private property owners have the “right to exclude” others from entry. Citing that principle, New York landlords said they should have the right to exclude tenants after their leases expire.
In January, the court heard a property rights challenge over developer fees; It could also have a broad impact in California.
George Sheetz sued El Dorado County, near Sacramento, after he was assessed a $23,000 fee for a permit to install a manufactured home on land he owned.
The county says the fees, set by legislation, help pay for new and expanded roads in the area, and California courts ruled in the county's favor.
But the judges seemed very divided in Sheetz v. El Dorado County on whether such building permit fees amount to a government taking of private property.
In New York City, several owners of small and medium-sized apartment buildings filed lawsuits, alleging that the new rent control laws went so far that “their property no longer belongs to them” and that “New York has expropriated it.”
Landlords pointed to changes made in 2019 that make it more difficult to exclude tenants after their leases expire, even if the landlord wants the space for his own family members.
They said that while rent control was once advocated as a temporary solution to the severe housing shortage, the laws now “grant tenants a perpetual option to renew their leases, transforming term leases into lifetime tenancies.” required by the government.
The New York cases are 74 Pinehurst LLC v. New York and 335-7 LLC v. City of New York.
