A large professional real estate association whose members own or manage more than 300,000 rent-regulated apartments—about a third of the city's inventory of affordable units—said it will better police its members to prevent them from harassing tenants or committing other violations.

The 4,000-member Community Housing Improvement Program said it would fine or potentially expel CHIP members for misconduct and report them to relevant state or city agencies.

To gather information about potential violations, the group said it will require its members to have a system to field complaints from tenants and will require them to disclose those complaints to the organization. The association said it also will independently field and investigate complaints from tenants.

"If someone is acting as a bad landlord, we are going to take that situation and show elected officials we take it seriously," said Jay Martin, CHIP's recently appointed executive director. "There are bad actors, and we're trying to find them and weed them out."

The initiative appears to be an attempt by the industry to show it can self-police after recent revelations of instances in which landlords bent or broke the rules to boot out rent-regulated tenants and convert their apartments to market rate. It also is an effort to rehabilitate the image of building owners as ruthless perpetrators of the city's affordability crisis and draw a line between responsible landlords and bad actors.

"We want to dispel the myth of a smoke-filled room where landlords gather, scheming for ways to collect more money," Martin said. "Many of our members are small, family-run businesses that are long-time owners."

The effort comes after Democrats grabbed control of the state Senate, potentially putting regulations onerous to landlords on the legislative agenda. On the Democrats' wish list is an end to luxury decontrol, which allows landlords to levy big rent increases and convert stabilized apartments to market rate by investing to upgrade units.

Owners also are concerned that preferential rents, a discounted sum that landlords temporarily offer to lease regulated units, might become binding.

"There's a huge threat on all of these fronts," said Martin, who is well-versed in real estate politics, having previously served as the chief of staff to state Sen. David Carlucci, a Democrat representing Rockland and Westchester counties. "If you pass these rules and regulations, you will drive building owners into a tough financial position."

Some watchdog groups that helped reveal recent malfeasance among landlords expressed skepticism that an industry group could meaningfully monitor its members.

"The new state Legislature has evidently sent CHIP into full-blown crisis mode," said Aaron Carr, executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative. "CHIP is attempting to slow the momentum of housing reforms and the role of housing reformers by promising to act as its own watchdog."

Among the raft of malfeasance revelations, many of which were uncovered by the Housing Rights Initiative, were reports that Kushner Cos., the family real estate firm of White House adviser Jared Kushner, did not properly file with the Department of Buildings, potentially allowing it to harass tenants in rent-regulated apartments in order to drive them out.

The New York Times produced a series of articles last year that showed how unscrupulous landlords forced out tenants with construction and frivolous lawsuits.