Jessica Cole Photos
Kampton Singh and Margaret Ottenbreit, both landlords, could give themselves a raise by lifting the rents on their New Haven properties. Instead, they charge lower rates than many of their neighbors — and good tenants stick around longer as a result.
Singh (pictured) and Ottenbreit are two members of New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission, which hosted a community forum on Tuesday evening at City Hall to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The forum, entitled “Who, How and What Determines a ‘Fair’ Market Rent,” consisted of a discussion between commission members and local property owners and residents.
Around the table, attendees nodded when the landlords spoke of a good way to keep rents down without the intercession of their own commission: developing long-lasting, trusted relationships with a smaller number of tenants paying a lower rate as opposed to charging at the top of market prices and dealing with high levels of turnover or debt.
Landlords still expressed concerns Tuesday night, but the discussion different markedly from one that took place across the state border this fall prompted by this candidate for New York governor, who ran under the “Rent Is Too Damn High Party” banner.
Established on Dec. 7, 1970, New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission spends its time mediating disputes about rents around the city and administering the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Fair Housing Program. It was established in response to low levels of vacancies during the 1970s that allowed rents to spin “out of control,” in Chairperson Joanne Lewis’s words.
Members told Tuesday night’s audience in City Hall that the commission remains relevant today. They handed out an article showing that New Haven still has a low vacancy rate, and, in fact, had the lowest apartment vacancy rate in the nation at the end of September.
Douglas Losty, president of the Greater New Haven Property Owners Association, provided a counterpoint to the article and to many of the other speakers throughout the evening.
“Just think of me as the loyal opposition,” he said with a smile during his introductions. From his perspective, it is growing more and more difficult to adhere to the standards laid out by the commission and still make a viable living as a landlord.
“Rents have been relatively stable, but property taxes have gone up 50 – 60 percent,” he said, also citing rising insurance costs as an upward pressure on the costs of doing business
Other commission members mentioned safety, access to public transportation (for which New Haven received praise), and maintenance as other factors that go into the pricing calculations of both renters and landlords.
Otis Johnson, Jr. (pictured), executive director of the Fair Rent Commission, said that there is always an equitable way to resolve rent disagreements. He said that most complaints are worked out in informal hearings. The rest almost always receive consensus verdicts from the commission, which emphasized that it supports both tenants and landlords depending on the situation. Often, a renter is willing to tolerate a monthly increase, but he or she first wants the building to be fixed and compliant with the housing code first.
“They’ll say, ‘I don’t mind the increase; I just want them to fix the place up,’” said Johnson. “If they have clean, safe, affordable housing, then folks are relatively comfortable.”
And it’s that level of comfort that commission members seek in as they look towards their next few years of improving residential life for the city.
“Residents of a neighborhood make that neighborhood a place to live in,” Singh said. “Once people have an investment and say, ‘This is my neighborhood, and I’m going to be living there,’ it’s ‘Go!’ from there on.”
