The Village of Catskill Trustees voted 3-0 on Nov. 13 to opt-in to New York’s new Good Cause Eviction law (many questions about the law are addressed here). Joseph Kozloski, Natasha Law, and Dan Ward voted for the law while Jeff Workman was absent (as he has been at most recent meetings), and Jamie Mitchell, who was there, decided to abstain (which in reality becomes a no vote). At first, Mitchell gave no explanation for her abstention, and then, when asked, spoke for six minutes (listen to her monologue below) saying she was a long-time resident who has been in many economic situations.
The village ended up defining a “small landlord” as anyone renting one unit (so landlords could not set up separate LLC’s for each apartment to get around the law). The village of Catskill also choose to set a 300 percent maximum fair market rent paid by the tenant before they’re no longer eligible for good cause eviction protection. That means, landlords can make it a luxury apartment with a giant rent increase, to get out of the law. Activists asked for 345 percent, and the village’s attorney, who made the initial proposal, had the trustees begin the evening at 275 percent. The law mostly limits landlords to a ten percent, or less, rent increase a year (depending on economic conditions). It also mandates that landlords can only evict tenants for good cause reasons, such as not following rules in a lease, or illegal activity.
At the first public hearing, on Oct. 23 (listen to the audio and watch the video here) several landlords spoke against the village opting-in to the new law, but one also began opposing the rules, and as his questions were answered, ended up supporting the law. At the Nov. 13 meeting, only one person, who said she worked for landlords, spoke against the town opting-in, and she was unfortunately repeatedly interrupted by one pro-Good Cause Catskill resident.
Here is the audio of the actual vote on the issue, at the very end of the meeting:
The City of Hudson opted-in to the law on Oct. 15. There, several council members also choose not to vote rather than go on the record, with one recusing and two conspicuously absent. Read my account of that vote, with video, here. The audio at the top of this story begins in the middle of the village meeting, before the public hearing. The video below also begins during that meeting, and gets to the public hearing after that. Click on “Transcript” above to read all the words of the public hearing and vote.
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