Landlord Group Fighting Rent Reform Hires Lobbying Firm With Cuomo Connections

Contractors protest rent reform on May 17th, 2019 at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.

A real estate group represented by a lobbying firm started by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s former campaign manager is waging a high-stakes battle against tenant advocates and the push for rent reform.

The Alliance For Rental Excellence in NY, whose website describes rent reforms as “bad for working New Yorkers,” was created as a limited liability company in February, according to state filing data on corporate entities. The website includes photos and videos of men holding protest signs that say, “Protect Tenants and Contractors” and “Protect MCIs.” The latter is a reference to major capital increases, a policy that allows landlords to effect permanent rent increases to recoup the cost of renovations but which housing activists have criticized as being a tool to push out rent-regulated tenants.

According to the state filing, Alliance For Rental Excellence is registered to a P.O. Box address in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

Reached by phone late Wednesday, Laura Montross, of Kivvit, a prominent public affairs and lobbying firm, acknowledged that her company had been hired to handle press for the Alliance For Rental Excellence. But she and another employee of Kivvit declined to comment on the record, saying they would defer questions to an official spokesperson from the group.

As of Thursday afternoon, Gothamist has not heard from a spokesperson.

Kivvit has strong ties to Cuomo, boasting at least four current employees on its website who have worked for the governor. Its founder, Maggie Moran, was a campaign manager Cuomo's 2018 reelection campaign. Prior to that she was a senior advisor on his 2010 campaign. Rich Bamberger, a fellow managing director at Kivvit, worked as the governor’s communications director. He was also the director of communications for Cuomo when he served as Attorney General. Abbey Collins, who served as the governor’s press secretary, and Josh Rosenfeld, a former deputy press secretary, also both work at Kivvit.

According to state lobbyist filings, Kivvit was retained by Alliance For Rental Excellence on May 14th, 2019 at a cost of $2,000 a month.

Although the revolving door between politics and lobbying is well-established, Kivvit's involvement, which comes at a pivotal moment in the battle over rent regulation, is likely to raise suspicions among tenant activists. The governor's relationship with lobbyists has drawn scrutiny over the years, most recently with Todd Howe, a former Cuomo loyalist turned lobbyist who pleaded guilty to eight felonies in 2016 on a series of public corruption cases that resulted in the convictions of two administration officials.

Citing the governor’s history of taking money from real estate donors, housing activists have urged Democratic leaders, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to leave the governor out of the rent reform negotiations.

“He has been our enemy for nine years,” Michael McKee, a longtime tenant activist, said about Cuomo in a recent interview with Gothamist. “He has never lifted a finger to pass stronger rent laws.”

Reached for comment, Caitlin Girouard, Cuomo's press Secretary, issued the following statement, “The Governor has made it clear many times that he is fully committed to working with the legislature and tenant community to reform rent regulations this session, including ending vacancy decontrol, repealing preferential rent and limiting capital and apartment improvement charges to protect affordable housing and respect tenant’s rights. I’ll leave the conspiracy theories to others.”

A total of nine bills have been proposed but several lawmakers said last week that real negotiations are yet to begin.

On Thursday, protesters from Alliance For Rental Excellence showed up in Albany prior to a public hearing on the proposed rent reform legislation held by the state Senate. According Cea Weaver, a tenants campaign coordinator who was in Albany representing the Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance, the members and signs were similar to those at a protest last week prior to another public hearing at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. At that rally, the protesters, which consisted mainly of workmen who identified themselves as plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, argued that the elimination of renovation increases will affect their livelihood. At the time, several of the participants denied being organized by any group.

None of the members spoke at either of the public hearings, according to Weaver.

Richard Martinez, a contractor in the Bronx who installs fire alarm and video surveillance systems, told Gothamist that he got involved in Alliance For Rental Excellence about a month ago after talking to other contractors and landlords. "We're all in this together," he said, adding that landlords losing renovation increases would directly impact him and his employees. "If we don’t do these things the right way, there are going to be some repercussions and unintended consequences," he said.

Brooklyn Assembly member Diana Richardson, a Democrat who interrogated one of the protesters last week, called the newly emerged coalition a “sham” and accused the members of trying to conflate a housing crisis with a labor issue. One of the videos on the group's website features a family-owned contractor worried that the elimination of renovation increases will mean less work for his business.

“They are trying to create superficial unrest,” Richardson told Gothamist. “They think the optics will pressure people... They didn’t even come to testify. It’s one thing to make noise. It’s another to do the work."

UPDATE: A prior version of this story cited an LLC address linked to a Brooklyn landlord that Alliance For Rental Excellence said was not involved in the group. The address is in fact a P.O. Box address.

Montross, of Kivvit, later issued the following statement: "The Alliance for Rental Excellence is fighting on behalf of New Yorkers who work hard every day to build and maintain our city’s apartments. We can all agree responsible rent reform is good for New York, but we can’t afford to put tens of thousands of hard-working people out of their jobs.”