We Passed Good Cause in Ithaca!
Good Cause stops discrimination, guarantees lease renewals, limits rent hikes, and keeps Ithacans in our homes and communities.
🚨 UPDATE: We won! Good Cause was passed July 10th and filed with the state July 22nd. Tenants within the city limits of Ithaca now have additional protections preventing arbitrary non-renewals! Thank you to Mayor Robert Cantelmo, Solidarity Slate legislatiors Kayla Matos and Phoebe Brown and the majority of council for passing our biggest advance in tenant rights in over 50 years!
For more information and to see if you qualify, see below.
What Good Cause Does
Good Cause protections bar landlords from denying renewals or raising rent above a certain amount without proving a “Good Cause”. This is a revolutionary change to housing law — it bans discriminatory and retaliatory nonrenwals and curbs runaway rent hikes. To be more specific, Good Cause means:
📋 Guaranteed lease renewals
Rest easy knowing your lease renewal is guaranteed, even if you’re month-to-month.
⚖️ Limits on rent hikes
Tenants can force landlords to justify or reduce rent hikes above 10%, or CPI inflation plus 5%, whichever is lower.
🗓️ Max of one rent increase per year
Even for month-to-month tenants, price increases have a predictable schedule so you can plan ahead.
🔒 Protection from unjustified evictions
Landlords can’t evict without a “Good Cause”, like rent nonpayment or lease violations.
What does No LLC Loophole mean?
All tenants deserve protections from discrimination, retaliation, and price-gouging rent hikes. Unfortunately, New York’s Good Cause law leaves a way for cities to create an LLC Loophole — a carve-out that exempts tenants living under some landlords from Good Cause, and leaves all tenants in the dark about whether we’re protected due to New York’s lack of LLC transparency.
Common Council must pass Good Cause without an LLC loophole, just like the City of Albany recently did! ITU endorsees on Common Council, Solidarity Slate members Kayla Matos and Phoebe Brown, are leading the fight for a strong Good Cause.
Research & Data
Everyone deserves protection from discrimination and retaliation. We have a responsibility to make these protections as widely accessible as possible: no tenant who asks for repairs or asserts other existing legal rights should have to worry about retaliatory nonrenewals or evictions, and nobody deserves to be price-gouged.
Loopholes for discriminatory and retaliatory evictions legally permit the oppression of Black and brown tenants. According to a Community Service Society study on racialized eviction bias in New York, people of color are multiple times more likely to face eviction than white tenants — especially Black mothers. As one Black tenant interviewed in the study reported: “When I complained about substandard conditions in my apartment, I was illegally evicted in an act of retaliation. It took me years to get rehoused, and I am still dealing with the health impacts today. I always knew that Black renters, especially women, are more likely to be evicted than white renters, but I never thought it would impact me as personally as it did.”
A study by Cornell’s ILR Co-Lab found that higher eviction rates are associated with lower public safety and higher rates of crime, recommending that “to prevent these outcomes, it is necessary to take substantive action to prevent evictions and keep New Yorkers in their homes,” including by passing Good Cause protections.
The American Housing Survey found that over 72% of forced displacements occur without a formal eviction filing. That means for every formal eviction, three more happen via means like involuntary nonrenewals and unaffordable rent hikes.
In addition to the negative social, health, and economic effects, forced displacement deregisters voters and suppresses democracy. A landmark study at Princeton University on the relationship between forced displacement and voter turnout estimated that “reducing the residential eviction rate by 1 percentage point would have increased voter turnout in 2016 by 2.73 percentage points.” The study notes that in light of overwhelming data on the disproportionate impact of eviction and housing instability on communities of color — for example, Black households in New York are up to three times as likely as white households to face eviction — not addressing this issue is effectively “suppressing the political voice of the poor and blunting the full power of the Black and Hispanic vote.”
Who is eligible for Good Cause?
Tenants in opted-in cities, towns, and villages who:
Live in a building built before 2009
Pay less than a council-defined percent of Fair Market Rent
Default is 245%, or $3k/month for a 1-bedroom. Albany and Kingston are moving forward with 345%, or about $4.1k/mo for a 1-bed. Ithaca should follow their lead.
Unless council prevents the LLC loophole — rent from a landlord with a unit portfolio under a certain size
As discussed above, an LLC loophole would leave all tenants in the dark about their protections, which is why Albany and Kingston are moving forward without it. Ithaca should follow their lead.
Do not live in an owner-occupied building with fewer than 11 units
Do not live in a co-op, condo, or housing rented as part of an employment agreement
Do not live in a rent-stabilized, subsidized, manufactured home, or public housing unit. (These have similar but separate protections)
If Ithaca’s Common council passes a strong version of Good Cause, the vast majority of tenants in the city will be covered. Sign the petition telling them to opt in here!
How will I use Good Cause?
Under Good Cause, landlords have to prove a “Good Cause” (such as rent nonpayment or lease violations) in order to evict or non-renew a tenant. Tenants can also force landlords to justify rent increases above 10% or the rate of inflation plus 5%, whichever is lower.
Good Cause is most effective when tenants enforce their rights together as a group. If you’re facing a rent hike, unfair eviction, or non-renewal, chances are your neighbors are too. Talk to your neighbors and negotiate with your landlord together. When tenants work together, we have more power.
What can I do if my landlord refuses to renew my lease or tries to evict me for no reason?
Once Ithaca opts in to Good Cause, you can tell your landlord you have a right to stay unless they have a “Good Cause” to evict you, like rent nonpayment or lease violations. If your landlord then tries to formally evict you in court without a valid cause, you can raise a Good Cause defense.
What can I do if my landlord tries to raise rent more than CPI+5% or 10%, whichever is lower?
Once Ithaca opts in to Good Cause, you can invoke your Good Cause rights and ask your landlord to open their books to see whether the increase is justified by real costs. If it’s not, or they refuse, you’d tell your landlord it’s an unreasonable rent increase, and that a judge would force them to do the same and then cap the increase to a cost-justified amount. If they still refused and took it to court, you’d raise a Good Cause defense, forcing them to open their books and capping the increase at a cost-justified amount.