Weiner: Hooray for Luxury Decontrol

Here’s Brooklyn congressman and 2009 mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner voicing support for existing high-rent vacancy decontrol laws—also known as luxury decontrol—which allows landlords to take apartments out of rent-stabilization if households make at least $175,000 [corrected] for two consecutive years—but only if the apartment rents for over $2,000 a month.

“Rent regulation should not be a program—even if it’s for 10 people; even if it’s for five people—that provides a subsidy and support for those who don’t need it,” he said. “I don’t believe that most New Yorkers who are struggling to make it in the city like the idea that somebody making a quarter of a million dollars a year, living in an apartment that would normally be $2,500 a month, they want to see that—they don’t.”

Mr. Weiner was speaking at a Citizens Union breakfast this morning, attended by Observer reporter Azi Paybarah.