The Debate Over Good Cause Eviction
By Alana Ciuffetelli, Chair, Apartment Owners Advisory Council (AOAC), Building and Realty Institute (BRI)
The decision by Westchester municipalities, including most recently New Rochelle, to adopt Good Cause Eviction mandates may have been made with good intentions, but the policy is unlikely to achieve what its name promises — and could make local housing challenges worse.
For a law called Good Cause Eviction, the number of evictions isn’t likely to change much. Nine out of ten evictions in New Rochelle last year were for failure to pay rent — a cause that remains fully allowed under the new law. Across the state, municipalities that adopted Good Cause months ago have actually seen slight increases in evictions. The root causes of eviction — housing affordability, rising costs, and stagnant incomes — remain unaddressed.
The rent cap, set at the lower of 10% or inflation plus 5%, might sound fair, but it creates new problems for both tenants and property owners. When a major, unexpected expense hits — storm damage, emergency repairs, or a sudden spike in insurance — requiring a larger than normal increase in rent upon renewal, under the law, a tenant could simply refuse to pay, pushing the issue into housing court where it could take months or years to resolve. In New York City, some landlords are reportedly raising rents more than they normally would – say, 6% where they would normally stick with 3% — not to exploit tenants but to safeguard against future risk.
And the issues go beyond dollars and cents. Good Cause has been dubbed the “Bad Neighbor Protection Act” because it can make it difficult to address disruptive or unsafe tenant behavior that falls short of being criminal or an open-and-shut lease violation. A tenant who routinely aggravates neighbors, damages property, or delays access for repairs could still have a near-automatic right to renewal — even at the expense of everyone else’s safety and peace of mind.
For renters seeking affordable housing, the law may also backfire. Because property owners can no longer simply decline to renew a lease for tenants who are causing issues or generating complaints, they will be more cautious when approving new applicants — especially those with unstable finances or prior rental problems. Ironically, the people who need housing the most could end up having an even harder time securing it.
The end result could be fewer available apartments, higher rents over time, and more strained relationships between tenants and property owners. Unless Westchester communities are ready to significantly expand their housing stock, we’ll see fewer vacancies and more competition for what’s left — the exact opposite of what this law intended.
We all want stable, affordable housing. But if Good Cause leads to the same number of evictions, higher rents, fewer repairs, and extra protection for nuisance neighbors, we need to ask: what good is it really doing?
