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The New York City Water Board recently unanimously approved a 2.1 percent increase in the city’s water and sewer rates. The increase, the lowest in 16 years, is the third consecutive rate rise since Mayor de Blasio took office in 2014. The new rate takes effect July 1.

On May 3, the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) voted on preliminary increases for next year for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments. The nine-member board voted 5-4 in favor of increases of 0 percent to 2 percent on one-year leases and 0.5 percent to 3.5 percent on two-year leases signed between Oct. 1, 2016, and Sept. 30, 2017.

The Rent Stabilization Association recently launched an ad campaign against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing policies, arguing that the squeeze on their profits is putting jobs in danger. The ads feature actors portraying maintenance workers and small business owners who complain about work drying up because landlords can’t afford property repairs.

City Councilmembers and the de Blasio administration are set to discuss a compromise version of a bill that would require property owners seeking building permits to first demonstrate that they had not harassed their tenants. The proposed law, Intro 152-A, sponsored by Brooklyn Councilmember Brad Lander, was one of four tenant-protection bills recently discussed at a recent hearing.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman recently announced the initial financing for nearly 600 new low-income apartments across the city, paid for by $10 million in settlements with property owners who violated the law. The new homes will serve formerly homeless New Yorkers, low-income families, veterans, seniors, and people with mental health and substance abuse challenges.

Gov. Cuomo recently announced the first results of an ongoing investigation that uncovered the illegal removal of central heating systems in over two dozen rent-regulated buildings in New York City, impacting 145 tenants. The owners of these buildings, who are required by law to pay for and provide heat and hot water to rent-regulated tenants, had replaced their central heating systems with individual apartment meters, forcing tenants to pay for their own heat.

New York City recently hired Diana Leyden as the city’s first taxpayer advocate, a new position created by Finance Commissioner Jacques Jiha. Leyden is a law professor from Connecticut and has run a free income-tax clinic for low-income taxpayers in Hartford for the past 16 years. According to the website, the purpose of the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate is to help taxpayers solve their NYC tax issues after they’ve made attempts to fix them with the Department of Finance on their own.

The 421-a tax abatement program, which grants subsidies to developers who offer low-income units in new buildings, has expired. The program’s future depended on negotiations between the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York over wage requirements for construction workers at 421-a sites.

Airbnb recently released a massive dataset about its business in New York City. The data on thousands of hosts in the city includes statistics such as host earnings, the types of listings, and how often people rent out their homes. This is the latest action the company has taken to counter the image portrayed by the New York state attorney general, who has accused Airbnb of enabling illegal hotels. Airbnb has pushed back against that perception, pledging to be an “open and transparent” company that would work closely with cities to ensure it pays its fair share of taxes.

ProPublica, a nonprofit with a focus on investigative journalism, recently conducted an analysis of government data on nearly 15,000 rental buildings receiving the 421-a and J51 tax subsidies as of 2013. About 40 percent—or 5,500 buildings—weren’t listed as rent stabilized, yet records show the owners are receiving more than $100 million in property tax reductions.