NYC's Sky-high Vacancy Rate of 11% Threatens to End Rent Regulation

``The rent protections are taken for granted, but the law contains a poison pill: if five percent of the apartments are vacant, the rent regulations end. If the vacancy rate remains below five percent, the protections continue... The Community Housing Improvement Program or CHIP represents landlords who own hundreds of thousands of apartments and says its member survey shows a vacancy rate of nearly 11 percent now up from 3.38% in February.''