Fugetaboutit: Supremes pass on NYC rent control law case

New Yorkers who live in affordable apartments – some of which have been handed down within families for years – can rest easy today. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a case challenging the city’s rent control laws.

The Court gave a hint that it could take up the challenge last month when it asked the city as state to respond to the petition by a landlord of an Upper West Side rental property. The owner claimed that city laws preventing him from increasing the rent on a tenant who has resided in an apartment since the 1970s amounts to an unconstitutional taking by the government. The rent is currently capped at a rate lower than the mortgage the tenant pays on a vacation home in the Hamptons.

But the justices took a pass, declining certiorari without comment Monday.