WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, made up of mostly Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointees, passed a rent freeze on 1 million rent-stabilized units.<\/p>\n
The rent freeze applies to both one-year and two-year leases and was approved in a 7-1 vote on Thursday, the New York Post reported<\/a>. Arpit Gupta, an appointee of former Mayor Eric Adams, was the lone no vote.<\/p>\n The vote came hours after the public resignation of one of the board’s members, Christina Smyth, who accused the panel of ignoring its own data during the lengthy process to decide whether to adjust rents. She claimed the decision to freeze rent was made \u201clast year on the campaign trail.\u201d<\/p>\n The board \u201cstopped being a fact-finding body\u201d and was rebuilt \u201cto deliver a rent freeze,\u201d Smyth wrote in her resignation letter. She was one of two landlord advocates on the board.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything else has been theater,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe hearings, the reports, the public comment, the data. None of it was ever going to change the result.\u201d<\/p>\n Smyth was one of three board members whom Adams appointed. Mamdani appointed the other six board members after taking office this year.<\/p>\n Mamdani has repeatedly claimed that the board is independent, noting it had been conducting \u201cboth fact finding as well as testimonies\u201d for months before the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a historic victory for New York City tenants. After reviewing the data and hearing from New Yorkers across the city, the independent RGB has delivered a freeze on one-year leases, and the first-ever freeze on two-year leases in our city\u2019s history,\u201d Mamdani said in a statement after the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the relief that working people across our city deserve,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The board has only frozen rent three times in its history, all under Mayor Bill de Blasio, in 2015, 2016, and 2020, and each for a one-year timeframe.<\/p>\n \u201cThe resignation of the only principled RGB member and the board\u2019s only meaningful advocate for small owners validated our greatest fear, that the majority Mamdani-appointed RGB would cave to the political demands of City Hall,\u201d said Ann Korchak, the Small Property Owners of New York board president.<\/p>\n Real Estate Board of New York President James Whelan also criticized the rent freeze as a \u201cterrible decision.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Rent Guidelines Board ignored its own data and made a terrible decision tonight. Older rent-stabilized buildings are already struggling under rising operating costs, yet the Board chose to disregard those realities,\u201d Whelan said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThis decision will mean less investment in maintenance and repairs, accelerating the deterioration of the housing stock that millions of New Yorkers call home. Tonight\u2019s vote may be politically popular, but it will make New York\u2019s housing crisis worse.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rent Guidelines Board released a report in April that showed rent-stabilized housing insurance increased 10.5% in 2026 year over year, while fuel and maintenance rose 11% and 6%, respectively.<\/p>\n Maksim Wynn, a Mamdani-appointed landlord representative on the board, gave a lengthy speech at the meeting acknowledging landlords\u2019 struggles, but ultimately said the rent freeze was in their best interest.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a substantial subset of housing stock in distress,\u201d Wynn said. \u201cStill, a 0% increase on one- and two-year leases is in landlords\u2019 best interest.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, Mamdani unveiled a plan<\/a> for a new, privately-run, city-backed insurance program aimed at reducing costs in rent-stabilized buildings. However, City Hall has not yet released key details on the initiative<\/a>, which is set to launch in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, made up of mostly Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointees,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[58541,6721,1445,9,24,55,54,56,6205,15021,13323,107329],"class_list":["post-279342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-christina-smyth","tag-housing-crisis","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-rent-freeze","tag-rent-guidelines-board","tag-rent-stabilized","tag-two-year-leases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342","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=279342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}