The board member who proposed the increases, Barbara Gordon-Espejo, said she was prompted by the agency's research, which suggested that many landlords of low-rent buildings were under the greatest financial strain.

One, on the wall of a brick apartment house at 104th Street and Lexington Avenue, is sponsored by Hope Community Inc., a group that renovates and manages low-rent buildings.

THE main cause of abandonment was the difficulty of managing marginal low-rent buildings as operating costs soared.

The building is currently a low-rent building, popular with artists, in downtown Minneapolis flanked by Target Corporation's Headquarters and the AT&T Tower.

It is questionable whether landlords of low-rent buildings will even benefit when their tenants typically pay rents less than market rate because they can't pay more.

They head companies on the fringes of Seventh Avenue, in the low-rent buildings that approach the Hudson River.

In considering the proposals, the board has argued that there is mounting evidence that many landlords of low-rent buildings can no longer afford to maintain them.

These include law firms, architects and developers who help in securing and renovating low-rent buildings and people who offer the homeless entry-level jobs in their companies.

Residents fear such structures because the neighborhood contains so many low-rent buildings and single-room occupancy hotels that are tempting to developers.

It was now a low-rent professional building.