Ryan Hutchins

City Councilman Ben Kallos introduced legislation today that would require the creation of a universal smartphone app for hailing cabs in New York.

The measure is backed by taxi owners and would, in theory, neutralize the threat of e-hail companies like Uber while making it easier to connect with yellow or green borough cabs by app, rather than using the traditional street hail. It follows a similar effort in Chicago,where the city is planning to develop one or several apps that would allow riders to go to one place to hail a cab. Officials in Washington, D.C., are undertaking a similar effort.

“The gist of the bill is it’s designed to allow people to hail yellow and green cabs, where as right now it’s not easy to do that,” Sarah Anders, a spokeswoman for Kallos, said.

More than half a dozen City Council members will speak out Monday afternoon in favor of freezing rents for the nearly one million New Yorkers who live in rent-regulated housing, Capital has learned.

The council members are expected to speak at a public hearing being held by the Rent Guidelines Board, which is set to vote on possible rent increases on June 23. This is the first time the 45-year-old board has considered a zero-percent increase.

Council members Margaret Chin, Dan Garodnick, Corey Johnson, Ben Kallos, Mark Levine, Ydanis Rodriguez and Helen Rosenthal are scheduled to testify at the hearing, which is starting this hour, according to a draft press release obtained by Capital. City Comptroller Scott Stringer is also scheduled to testify at 5:30 p.m.

The council members will argue that the board, for years now, has favored the interests of landlords over the interests of tenants and that it is time residents get some relief.