(Bloomberg) -- The US Supreme Court refused to question New York’s rent-control system, turning away two appeals that said the rules violate apartment owners’ constitutional rights.
One appeal, pressed by 12 sets of property owners in New York City and Yonkers, targeted restrictions on landlords who want to reclaim rental units for personal use or convert buildings to condos or co-ops. A separate appeal by landlords in Westchester County challenged other regulations.
The court, as is its custom, made no comment. Justice Neil Gorsuch said he would have heard the appeals.
The simultaneous rebuffs mark the third time in a little more than a year that the court has declined to hear challenges to a system that governs a million units in New York City alone, shaping its neighborhoods, wallets and lifestyles. High court review could also have raised questions about rent-control laws in California, Oregon and 200 local jurisdictions.
The apartment owners said the restrictions violate the constitutional provision that prohibits governments from taking private property without just compensation.
“Governments do not have carte blanche to transform private property into state-controlled housing stock without just compensation,” the New York City and Yonkers owners argued in their appeal.
The cases reached the high court amid growing debate over the high cost of housing. President Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass a form of national rent control. The court in 2021 lifted the Biden administration’s moratorium on evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
New York City’s rent-stabilization system, which dates back to 1969, is among the most tenant-friendly in the nation. It requires landlords to renew leases except in limited circumstances such as failing to pay rent. The program, which governs buildings that were built before 1974 and have six or more units, also limits the amount of annual rent increases.
City and state officials urged the Supreme Court not to intervene. New York Attorney General Letitia James called the system “a critical tool to combat the harms caused by rent profiteering in a tight housing market including homelessness and economic instability.”
A New York-based federal appeals court rejected both challenges in March.
The challengers included Jane Ordway and Dexter Guerrieri, who are seeking to take over a rented apartment in an eight-unit building they own in Brooklyn Heights. Ordway and Guerrieri already live in two of the units, but the apartments are on different floors and the third unit would let the couple consolidate the living space.
The cases are G-Max Management v. New York, 23-1148, and Building and Realty Institute v. New York, 23-1220.
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