Op-Ed: ETPA Is Not Right for Ossining Right Now

By Marlene Cheatham, Former Village Trustee

I was born and raised in Ossining. My dad worked at the prison; my mom was a home health aid at Mariandale and Bethel. I grew up at Star at Bethlehem Baptist Church. I’ve lived here a long time, seen a lot of changes in this village. And I can tell you this: The Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA) is not a good idea for Ossining at this time. There are other things that need to be done first.

Community Voices Heard, an advocacy group based in Yonkers, has been trying to pass ETPA here for years. Every time there’s a change in mayor, they come back. As a past village trustee, I’ve seen them campaign here several times. Their whole objective is to pass ETPA.

ETPA is basically rent control. But in Ossining, the problem is not rent gouging; it’s substandard housing. ETPA doesn’t help the immigrant population that is living in dangerous and illegal housing. CVH doesn’t care that we have homeless people or children crowded into basements without plumbing or proper electricity.

They tell you they care, but when you listen to them speak and hold their feet to the fire, they say, we’re here to get ETPA passed.

Besides, the legislation is far from perfect. It only affects buildings constructed before 1974. It’s not helping the tenants living in apartments built after that, such as Avalon and Harbor Square. Don’t you want all tenants in the village to have the same protections? It also applies to buildings with six units or more. That means a lot of small landlords are going to be subject to a top-down bureaucracy that limits what they can charge for apartments, and how they can maintain their buildings.

Maybe we should take this opportunity to change the legislation so it isn’t so punitive. Apply it to newer buildings and raise the minimum number of units to spare the small landlord. I don’t think that that’s such a hard compromise to make.

We have a strong group of landlords here. If ETPA passes, the landlords will file a Notice of Claim to stop it. Every part of my being tells me they will sue the village, and we will become ensnared in a long and costly litigation that will pull resources from other efforts.

I’m not saying never to rent control for Ossining. I’m saying, Can you do it in a way that makes sense for the village? Not because you want to pass some legislation and get your name out there. That’s not good enough.

ETPA is one issue where the mayoral candidates have different opinions. Mayor Gearity and the mayors that preceded her did not support the village enabling ETPA. She is right in following their example.