U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Suit Challenging the Rent Stabilization Law WASHINGTON - Tenants in nearly a million apartments subject to New York City's rent regulations could breathe a sigh of relief on Monday. The United States Supreme Court, after indicating it might be interested in hearing a challenge to the regulations, decided to let them stand. As is customary when the court declines to hear a case, the justices gave no reasons. There were no published dissents. Perhaps one in a hundred petitions seeking review by the court is granted, meaning that the decision not to hear the case sent no larger message. The challenge to the rent law was brought by James D. Harmon Jr. and Jeanne Harmon, the owners of a five-story brownstone on West 76th Street near Central Park. They live on the lower floors and rent out the six apartments above them. Three of those apartments are subject to New York's rent-stabilization regulations, under which the government sets maximum permissible rent increases and generally allows tenants to renew their leases indefinitely. According to the Harmons" lawsuit, filed in 2008, the tenants in the rent-stabilized units pay around $1,000 a month, or about 60 percent below the market rate. The suit did not directly challenge the rent control law, an older system that applies to far fewer tenants. The Harmons said that requiring them to accept below-market rents amounted to an unconstitutional taking of their property. "We still believe that the Constitution does not allow the government to force us to take strangers into our home at our expense for life," Mr. Harmon said in a statement issued after the court turned down the case on Monday. Even our grandchildren have been barred from living with us. That is not our America. David Mlotok, a tenant in one of the Harmons" regulated apartments since 1976, said in an e-mail, "Obviously I'm relieved by the decision." A lawyer for the city, Alan Krams, said it was pleased with the ruling. "Rent regulation in New York City has a long history," he said in a statement, "and the court properly left it to elected state and city officials to decide its future." Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled against the Harmons. A three-judge panel of the appeals court said the couple knew what they were getting into when they acquired the building. It was that decision that the Supreme Court declined to consider. The Court of Appeals added that the couple retained important rights under the regulations: they could in some circumstances reclaim the apartments for their own use; they could demolish the building so long as they did not replace it with housing; and they could "evict an unsatisfactory tenant." All of that meant, the panel said, that the city's regulations did not amount to "permanent physical occupation of the Harmons" property" and so did not run foul of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, which says private property shall not "be taken for public use, without just compensation." The Supreme Court has said that government regulation of private property can be "so onerous that its effect is tantamount to a direct appropriation or ouster." But the court has upheld rent regulations, most recently in a unanimous ruling in a 1992 case concerning a mobile-home park in Escondido, Calif. The justices reasoned that regulation of the terms of a lease did not amount to the sort of complete government takeover of property that is barred by the takings clause. New York City's rent regulations cover almost half of the city's roughly 2.2 million rental housing units. A million other units are occupied by their owners. The State Legislature extended the law, which was about to expire, last year. In urging the justices not to hear the case - Harmon v. Kimmel, No. 11-496 - state and city officials defended rent regulations as a necessary response to a housing shortage and as a way to prevent "rent profiteering." Last month, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg certified that there was still a state of housing emergency, defined as a vacancy rate of less than 5 percent, which is a requirement for the regulations to be in effect. The emergency has been in effect for more than 40 years. Mr. Harmon said that was an odd kind of emergency. "Right now," he said, "there are 68,000 vacant apartments in the city. That is not an emergency by any definition. "Right now," Mr. Harmon said, "there are 68,000 vacant apartments in the city. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo told reporters on Monday that the court's order was "good news for the state of New York" because "rent regulations are very important to the tenants." Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, said she welcomed the decision. "Now," she said in a statement, "the city's rent regulation system can proceed unfettered, as we continue to ensure affordable housing is available to New Yorkers." But Joseph Strasburg, the president of the Rent Stabilization Association, a trade group for landlords, said the court's order was a missed opportunity. "This would at least have provided an opportunity to have a policy debate," he said, adding: "This law needs to be revisited and directed towards those who need it, as opposed to those who have received the benefits of the system even though they can well pay their fair share in terms of rent." Maggie Russell-Ciardi, the executive director of a tenant advocacy group called Tenants & Neighbors, said it was a mistake to focus on the occasional affluent beneficiaries of rent regulations. "Despite what you read, the majority are actually low- to moderate-income folks," she said. It's really a vital resource for them. The case attracted widespread attention, particularly from libertarian groups questioning what they called government interference in the marketplace. They said the city's rent regulations were not only unconstitutional but also counterproductive. "Rent controls make things worse, not better," said R. S. Radford, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which says it supports limited government and property rights and which filed a brief supporting the Harmons. "Squeezing landlords actually creates shortages by discouraging people from getting into the rental business," Mr. Radford said. It's as if the city's firefighters showed up at a burning house with gasoline instead of water. Elizabeth A. Harris contributed reporting from New York.