The current New York City Rent Guidelines Board met Thursday in anticipation of a big summer vote to determine a possible price hike for New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized units.
The upcoming vote is one of the first major tests of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise to freeze the rent. The power to decide whether or not to increase the rent for millions of tenants in the city lies in the hands of the nine members of the board — six of them recently appointed or re-appointed by the new mayor.
The board released its 2026 Income & Expense study, showing landlords’ net income for rent-stabilized buildings rose 5.3%, but landlords argue their expenses also went up.
Those findings sparked a discussion during the meeting between Adan Soltren, a Legal Aid attorney recently re-appointed as a tenant representative, and Christina Smyth, the founder of a real estate law firm.
“I think it is doing a massive disservice to not have a comparable tenant projection,” Soltren said.
“I do think tenants have the opportunity to communicate with us what they’re experiencing in terms of their cost of living,” Smyth added.
The board votes to set the next rates in June, which will go into effect on Oct. 1. Last year, they approved a 3% increase on one-year lease and a 4.5% increase on two-year leases.
“They’re constantly raising the rent every year,” said Linda Flores, of the East Village. “People don’t get increases in salary.”
“They should put a freeze on it for a couple of years,” George Pers, of East New York, said Thursday.
Ann Korchak, board president of the Small Property Owners of NY, said the board’s determination must not be a political one.
“The RGB’s mandate is clear. It must reject the political pressure of a Mamdani rent freeze and instead use its own data-driven analysis to determine rent adjustments,” she said in a statement.