A man’s home is the government’s castle

Does the US Constitution apply on the Upper West Side? The Supreme Court may soon decide.

New York City and state regulate the rents of 982,000 apartments — half the city’s rental homes.

The rules are complicated, but for the most part, apartments are regulated until they’re vacant and lease for more than $2,500 a month. Until then, the government determines annual rent increases. With few exceptions, tenants can renew their leases forever and can hand down their apartments to their kids.

New York controls this “market” because, they say, there’s a housing “emergency.” The emergency is that everyone on the planet wants to live here, and only so many people fit. With a few gaps in time, this “emergency” dates back to just after World War I, when rents soared for returning veterans.

The system is terrible, economically and socially. Price controls limit supply and favor those who got there first. In 2011, someone moving into an unregulated Manhattan apartment paid an average $3,309, because of tight supply; the vacancy rate was less than 1%. In 2008, the last year for which the city has full data, an unregulated Manhattan apartment went for an average $2,500, nearly twice the $1,300 regulated rate.

Good luck getting one of those cheaper apartments. In 2008, 40% of rent-regulated tenants had lived in their apartments for a decade or more, compared to 17% of market-rate tenants.

Newcomers to the city — including poorer immigrants — find that housing is too limited and expensive. Even people who live in rent-regulated apartments are trapped. They might like to move, but they would face a huge rent hike.

Politicians don’t care. They renew “temporary” rent laws again and again. Some voters think the system helps them; some are just resigned.

Enter Jim Harmon. A West Point grad and a former homicide and terrorism prosecutor, Harmon owns a five-story brownstone on West 76th Street in Manhattan.

Harmon inherited the now-landmarked house from his parents and grandparents and hopes to pass it on to his children and grandchildren. “This is our home,” he says. “We’ve had the same phone number since 1953.”

Harmon and his family live in the building and rent out the other six apartments there. His brownstone is a mini-New York: Three of his apartments are market-rate, and three are regulated.

The regulated tenants, because they’ve now lived there a collective 101 years, pay little more than $1,100 on average, two-thirds below market rate.

Harmon thinks that the laws that govern what he can — or can’t — do with his own property are not constitutional.

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