Last month’s story about an East Village resident fighting for a $291-a-month rent-controlled apartment sparked many a comment: one reader insisted that Margaret Hearn was “abusing a system meant for New Yorkers who earn modest livings to be able to continue to live in the city”; another posited that she had “earned her right to keep [her apartment] and belongs to a community.”

Perhaps the most notable comment, from a group called NYC Renters’ Alliance for Housing Choice, argued that “we need to reform the rent laws to make them more market-rate tenant friendly.” While local groups like Good Old Lower East Side and the Cooper Square Committee fight for the rights of low-income tenants, it’s not often we encounter a staunch advocate for market-rate tenants. (Though there have been notable cases.) So we decided to speak to the group’s founder, Gregory Bronner, 36, a Harlem resident and life-long New Yorker who thinks rent regulations should be phased out, with moderate subsidies given to the “truly needy.”

What was the idea behind starting this group?

In landlord-tenant issues, you realize there are stakeholders who don’t have a voice, and they are predominantly market-rate tenants. We are mostly market-rate tenants, stakeholders who got priced out of New York and have to move to the suburbs, people who got divorced and had to move out, and some landlords. We started last year and so far we’re just on Facebook, with 105 members.

Suzanne Rozdeba Margaret Hearn in her East Village apartment.

Why do you think we should get rid of rent-regulated apartments?

When rent-regulated apartments come into the market, they should be available to all New Yorkers. Finding a free-market apartment is hard, especially when a three-bedroom apartment is being occupied by a single woman with no children.

What do you think of Margaret Hearn’s fight for the three-bedroom, $291-a-month rent-controlled apartment?

This is a travesty for New York. That apartment is not paying its fair share of taxes. The landlord can’t even pay a very small level of taxes on a $291-a-month rent. The landlord is going to spend $50,000-$60,000 in court fighting her. That woman does not need a three-bedroom apartment. It’s obviously a violation of the rules; she should only have one, appropriately-sized apartment.

She’s already trying to go for free deals and triple the space. It’s simply based on who she knew. We think all New Yorkers should have a crack at it. It shouldn’t go to her just because she knew the last tenants. It’s not clear she needs to live there.

She said she’s holding on to both apartments so she’s not left homeless. What do you think of her argument?

We’re not trying to kick people out of their homes. But when rent-regulated apartments come into the market, they should be available to all New Yorkers. We believe that that apartment should no longer have succession rights. She should go back to her apartment in Gramercy. She should not be allowed to inherit. From a moral perspective, it would be better used for a middle-class family looking for housing.

If that apartment was market-rate, it would be paying over 10 times as much in property taxes. Giving her this gigantic subsidy does not serve a public policy purpose.

She provided 1,000 pages of evidence that she was living with the Ruta sisters , and that she helped care for them for several years.

She was working awfully hard as someone who was disabled. It’s not clear to me why she couldn’t have been a caregiver for someone else.

Where do you live?

I’ve lived in rent-controlled and rent-stabilized housing, as well as market-rate. I own a townhouse in Harlem now.

Has your group had any grassroots campaigns?

We try to have a few protests at rent guideline meetings. Not the type where we go out and scream.

You mentioned frustrations over politicians’ influence on laws surrounding rent regulation.

Politicians pander to rent-regulated tenants by saying the other guy is going to take your house, and then you’ll be priced out of Manhattan forever. We believe giving all New Yorkers all access to all units is a much fairer way of dealing with rent-regulated apartments. In the long run, we are against it. We end up paying more when politicians lock in their friends and constituents.