{"id":148715,"date":"2026-03-01T01:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/148715\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T01:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T01:00:08","slug":"why-mamdanis-rental-ripoff-hearings-are-a-sad-farce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/148715\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Mamdani\u2019s \u2018Rental Ripoff\u2019 hearings are a sad farce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ouch: Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s \u201cRental Ripoff<\/a>\u201d hearings look to be yet another embarrassing failure of the new administration, exposing how Democratic Socialist ideology deflates in the real world.<\/p>\n

The first event Thursday in Brooklyn<\/a> proved an earnest snooze.<\/p>\n

Dozens of tenants shared gripes about unsafe conditions, landlord abuses, evictions and \u201chidden\u201d fees \u2014 what you\u2019d expect from a standard constituent-services night, not any grand expos\u00e9 as the \u201cNew Yorkers vs Bad Landlords\u201d billing promised. <\/p>\n

Many of those testifying presented gripes that can get resolved in housing court; the rest simply couldn\u2019t afford their rent \u2014 which isn\u2019t especially the landlord\u2019s fault. <\/p>\n

Cea Weaver, the \u201ctenant protection\u201d czar, insisted on a show focused on privately-owned buildings; tenants of the city\u2019s worst slumlord, the public New York City Housing Authority<\/a>, couldn\u2019t testify but only consult about their gripes (slow repairs, horrible pest control, weak security) with agency reps on the sidelines. <\/p>\n

Weaver\u2019s preferred topic, \u201cjunk fees\u201d and any other payments made on top of base rent, was near-irrelevant: The city and state have plenty of laws and regulations covering those; if housing court needs to move faster on them, the mayor can devote resources to it. <\/p>\n

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As for (non-NYCHA) buildings with terrible conditions, a decade-plus of severely limited legal rent hikes (which the mayor vows to make worse) is the obvious explanation. <\/p>\n

The Real Estate Board of New York just updated a landmark 2018 study by the left-leaning Regional Plan Association to cover the last 24 months, identifying the properties where major violations and tenant evictions predominate. It found:\u00a0<\/p>\n

*About 10% of all residential buildings account for 97% of executed evictions.<\/p>\n

*The same 10% account for 88% of violations ID\u2019d by the city Housing Preservation and Development, and 94% of HPD Class C (most severe) violations.<\/p>\n

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*Within multifamily buildings (four or more units), 10% account for 80% of evictions and 50% of violations.<\/p>\n

*Buildings with 75% to 100% rent-stabilized units account for 47% of executed evictions.<\/p>\n

In short, buildings starved for rental income since Bill de Blasio become mayor are trying to avoid losing money by stinting on maintenance and pushing out tenants who don\u2019t pay. <\/p>\n

As Kenny Burgos, New York Apartment Association CEO, explains: \u201cWhen buildings don\u2019t bring in enough income to cover property taxes, utilities, maintenance and basic operating costs, decline becomes inevitable, no matter who owns them\u201d \u2014 a nod also NYCHA\u2019s woes and problems at buildings under other nonprofit management.<\/p>\n

Tighter rent controls and other new housing regulations won\u2019t change this math, but only spread the dysfunction. <\/p>\n

In the rest of America, people who have issues with their landlords just move; the only real fix for the city\u2019s housing market is to help supply grow drastically to meet demand \u2014 the Mamdani-Weaver drive to finger \u201cBad Landlord\u201d villains is irrelevant at best. <\/p>\n

City Hall can put its energy into making these dog-and-pony shows less pathetic, or it can start focusing on practical policies to make housing affordable. <\/p>\n

Does the mayor want more theater, or to truly make a difference?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ouch: Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s \u201cRental Ripoff\u201d hearings look to be yet another embarrassing failure of the new administration,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[433,42273,304,24225,2954,9,24,56,63,65,64,299,7978,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-148715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-cea-weaver","10":"tag-editorial","11":"tag-landlord-tenant-disputes","12":"tag-landlords","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-nyc-headlines","18":"tag-nyc-news","19":"tag-opinion","20":"tag-tenants","21":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}