Tenants\u2019 groups and leftwing activists are cheering New York City\u2019s newly announced multiyear rent freeze. But Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s rent scheme is headed for a judicial smackdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
In 2023 and twice in 2024, a hesitant Supreme Court declined to hear challenges by building owners to New York state\u2019s rent regulations. Lower courts had ruled that the regulations diminished the value of rental properties, but the state had good reasons to balance the rights of owners with the need to protect tenants.<\/p>\n
At that time, Justice Clarence Thomas said the constitutionality of New York\u2019s rent regulations is \u201can important and pressing question,\u201d and he looked forward to a case that clearly demonstrated the government was going too far to take an owner\u2019s property.<\/p>\n
Mamdani is giving Thomas what he\u2019s been waiting for \u2014 on a silver platter.<\/p>\n
Moscow Mamdani\u2019s scheme to deny landlords any rent hikes at all reeks of the kind of expropriation of private property that occurs in Cuba, Venezuela and other socialist nations. Not in America. It is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n
The Fifth Amendment bars government from imposing regulations that make a person\u2019s property worthless.<\/p>\n
Everyone who owns anything \u2014 a home or a business of any sort \u2014 should feel threatened by Mamdani\u2019s scheme to deny building owners fair compensation, doom rental properties to rapid decay, and then literally seize their buildings. After landlords, who\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
Under the framework established by the New York state legislature, the Rent Guidelines Board must determine allowable rent hikes based on the specific costs landlords incur. But Mamdani\u2019s handpicked RGB members threw the letter of the law out the window.<\/p>\n
Fuel costs went up 11% in the last year, and insurance went up 10.5%, but Mamdani\u2019s RGB announced that landlords will get no increases this year or the next. And, according to Mamdani\u2019s campaign promises, not even in the years after, as long as he is mayor.<\/p>\n
Zero rent hikes will cause buildings to rapidly fall into disrepair \u2014 just what the new mayor intends. On May 29, he announced that when landlords fail to keep buildings up to code, \u201cwe will take aggressive legal action\u201d to \u201ctransfer ownership to responsible stewards \u2014 stewards that include community land trusts, nonprofits and even the tenants themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York law already allows that, but only under extreme circumstances. It applied to fewer than 30 properties in 2024 and generally doesn\u2019t result in permanent confiscation. But Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze will turn many landlords into targets because they\u2019ll lack the revenue to keep apartments up to code. The rent freeze deliberately creates the conditions for widespread confiscation. Building owners get zip.<\/p>\n
Think Bolshevik Moscow in 1917, when the communists annulled private property rights, seized buildings and decreed them communal living spaces. Lefties now become the new land barons.<\/p>\n
RGB member Christina Smyth, appointed by former Mayor Eric Adams, resigned in protest just hours before the vote. She said the freeze \u201cwas decided last year on the campaign trail,\u201d and she offered to help anyone willing to wage a legal battle. \u201cIf so, I will do everything I can to assist them in being successful,\u201d she pledged.<\/p>\n
Bring on the fight.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that a lawsuit already filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against New York City and the RGB also has a significant shot at success.<\/p>\n
This suit focuses on the narrow case of what the real estate industry calls \u201czombie\u201d apartments that cannot be rented because a 2019 state law allows owners to recover only $50,000 for repairs, far less than what it would cost to get apartments up to code. There are currently an estimated 57,000 zombie units, according to the state\u2019s Division of Housing and Community Renewal, that are sitting vacant and worthless to the owners.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s likely to take two or three years for this case or any new challenge to Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze to reach the high court.<\/p>\n
If the justices slap down Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze, the confiscations or any portion of the city\u2019s rent regulatory scheme as an unconstitutional \u201ctaking,\u201d as they\u2019re likely to do, Mamdani will have to comply, no matter what the throngs of leftwing tenant advocates shout in the streets.<\/p>\n
Everyone in New York who owns anything \u2014 a home, a rental property, a diner, a bodega or another business \u2014 has a stake in this legal fight. Mamdani\u2019s scheme to seize rental properties is a red flag that all property rights are in peril.<\/p>\n
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and Chairman & Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths at www.hospitalinfection.org. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tenants\u2019 groups and leftwing activists are cheering New York City\u2019s newly announced multiyear rent freeze. But Mayor Zohran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1445,9,11,10,6205,21291],"class_list":["post-287813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-rent-freeze","tag-zohran-mamdani-rent-freeze"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287813","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=287813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}