Good: Sweeping reforms set to become law will give thousands of stretched New York families who struggle to pay the rent the chance to breathe a bit easier.

Bad: Over time, the overhaul may so severely distort incentives for landlords and builders that it’ll come back to hurt the very people it’s designed to help.

This is because, in the name of safeguarding the city’s current stock of affordable housing, new laws will extend rigid protections to countless people who don’t need them. Meantime, they are likely to put some small-building landlords in a tight vise, accelerating the deterioration of aging housing stock in need of constant, costly upkeep.

It could’ve been worse. Progressives driving the bus were pressing to totally eliminate landlords’ ability to raise rents to recoup the cost of making building-wide and apartment-specific improvements; instead, they reformed both, as we urged.