R&E member Daniel M. Bernstein and Managing Member Luise A. Barrack were speakers at a CLE called Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (“HSTPA”) – What Owners and Tenants (And Their Counsel) Need to Know. As Co-Chair of the NYC Bar Association’s Committee on Housing and Urban Development, Daniel gave opening remarks and a topical overview of the agenda to be discussed. Luise was the opening speaker of Panel I: HSTPA Impacts on Landlords and Tenants. Following pro-regulation plenary speakers Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie and RuthAnne Visnauskas and accompanied by pro-tenant panelists Ellen Davidson and David Hershey-Webb, Luise offered the program’s only pro-landlord perspective on HSTPA. She pragmatically advocated for owners and landlords and the NYC market at large with a bipartisan, logic-based interpretation of HSTPA and explained that changing legislation too far in any direction – either to the left or to the right – will reap damaging consequences on the NYC rent market. In an earlier Real Estate Weekly article, Luise symbolized the impact of HSTPA as a pendulum that had swung too far.
The post-panel Q&A session made for a balanced and informative opportunity for the packed audience to glean insight about HSTPA from both ends of the spectrum.