Thomas Breen Photo
Fair Rent Executive Director Wildaliz Bermúdez.
Wildaliz Bermúdez has a vision for New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission: Not just to consider disputes over individual rent hikes, but to piece together a big-picture sense of housing costs and living conditions in the Elm City.
As the commission’s new executive director, Bermúdez has an opportunity to shepherd that vision into practice. Bermúdez shared the vision over Zoom at the latest meeting of New Haven’s Affordable Housing Commission, as she outlined her department’s role in local housing regulation at a time when New Haven rents rose an estimated 19 percent in one year.
The Fair Rent Commission, as Bermúdez explained, is tasked primarily with reviewing complaints of exorbitant rent increases. Case by case, the commission typically works to mediate — and as a last resort, adjudicate in a public hearing — rent disputes rent between landlords and tenants.
Most of the time, those disputes arise when a landlord attempts to increase rent. The commission also hears complaints of poor living conditions that may merit a rent freeze or decrease until repairs are made, and (at least in theory) complaints of retaliatory evictions.
As executive director, Bermúdez is one of two paid city staffers assigned to the commission, which is otherwise comprised of nine volunteer commissioners.
The other staff member affiliated with the commission is a field representative who assesses the quality and value of each apartment in question before the commission. That field representative examines factors like the size and configuration of the apartment, the market rents for comparable apartments in the neighborhood, any housing code violations, and the last time the apartment has been renovated.
The executive director and field representative themselves don’t make judgment calls about what a “reasonable” rent would be for a particular apartment. Rather, they collect information that the nine commissioners will use when making a decision.
In her new role succeeding Otis Johnson, Bermúdez said, she plans to start collecting data about the types of complaints that the commission receives, in hopes of building a big-picture sense of the city’s housing landscape from the commission’s day-to-day, case-by-case work.
That information could include rent averages by zip code and census tract, the rate at which rents have been rising, and where most complaints have been coming from, Bermúdez said.
Bermúdez also seeks to inform New Haveners about Fair Rent’s role, both online, through social media posts and informational videos, and face to face, at community meetings, religious institutions, and libraries.
Finally, she said, she aims to increase the commission’s collaboration with other departments and entities, like the Affordable Housing Commission.
What About Those Other Fees?
At the affordable housing meeting, clockwise from top left: Claudette Kidd, Anika Singh Lemar, Elias Estabrook, Wildaliz Bermúdez.
One possible opportunity for collaboration arose in the discussion at the meeting last Wednesday evening, when Affordable Housing Commissioner and housing advocate Claudette Kidd asked about Fair Rent’s purview over apartment fees outside of rent — specifically, application fees.
“Currently, landlords are charging whatever they want for application fees,” Kidd said. She spoke of an instance she’d heard about in which a landlord charged an application fee for an apartment that was not vacant. “Are there any caps on application fees?”
Bermúdez told Kidd she’d have to research whether application fees would fall under Fair Rent’s jurisdiction.
Elias Estabrook said he would put “security deposits as the same category as application fees. Costs before [a tenant is] even in the home that can be prohibitive,” and that should somehow be regulated.
Affordable Housing Commissioner Anika Singh Lemar argued that while an application fee may not be covered by Fair Rent, since it isn’t established by a lease, a security deposit should be considered a form of rent.
The Fair Rent Commission has weighed in on other housing charges under a lease. It recently ruled that a pet fee had been set too high for a Maltby Place apartment, for instance.
There are limits on what a landlord can charge as a security deposit, Bermúdez said: Landlords are not allowed to charge more than three months’ worth of rent upfront. But, Bermúdez added, tenants may not be informed about that restriction.
Singh Lemar suggested that the city require multi-unit apartment buildings to post sheets of paper with information on tenants’ rights — “kind of like an OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] posting” on workers’ safety rights — with information about security deposit limits, housing inspections, and housing-related hotlines.
Fair Rent complaints can be filed in person at City Hall, or online at this link.
Bermúdez: Fair Rent can do more.
I assume some landlords are somewhat "safeguarded" (larger landlord companies) from denied rent increases deemed excessive by the FRC. But what about the smaller landlords who face the heavy burdens of inflation and increased property taxes. Do FRC equally represent both tenants and landlords, or are landlords essentially on their own, legally and financially? I usually become skeptical when governmental commissions look to increase their scope and power.