{"id":326857,"date":"2026-08-21T18:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T18:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326857\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T18:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T18:58:12","slug":"nyc-gets-early-win-in-legal-battle-over-mamdanis-unlawful-rent-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326857\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC gets early win in legal battle over Mamdani’s \u2018unlawful\u2019 rent freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

City Hall claimed an early win in a legal battle challenging Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s promised rent freeze<\/a>, with a judge ruling that the suit was filed in the wrong borough.<\/p>\n

That means the suit will have to be moved from Staten Island to Manhattan and puts on pause a further hearing on the actual issues at hand \u2014 including efforts by landlord and tenant supporting parties to join the suit.<\/p>\n

The city got an early win Friday in a legal battle challenging the Rent Guideline Board\u2019s decision to issue a two-year rent freeze this June. Kevin C. Downs for NY Post<\/p>\n

Staten Island Judge Ralph Porzio, in ordering the case be relocated to Manhattan Supreme Court, noted that he \u201cwas prepared to decide the issue on the merits,\u201d citing the \u201cenormity and the impact this case has.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, this venue motion\u2026 had to be decided, and I\u2019ve decided it this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

A coalition of city landlords filed their lawsuit against the Rent Guidelines Board, calling its decision to freeze rents<\/a> on 1 million rent-stabilized units for two years a rigged \u201csham\u201d and \u201cunlawful\u201d a month ago in Staten Island Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro filed the lawsuit on behalf of a group of small landlords a month ago, and suffered Friday\u2019s setback on his birthday. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n

But almost immediately, city lawyers signaled that they would challenge not just the lawsuit itself but that the suit\u2019s lead litigator, former First Deputy Mayor and Mamdani legal foil Randy Mastro, filed the case in Staten Island.<\/p>\n

Their argument was fairly technical: a lawsuit challenging an official government decision, known as an Article 78, must be filed where the decision was made \u2014 which they argue was in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis venue motion has nothing to do with your honor\u2019s ability to hear the case on its merits,\u201d corporation counsel Steven Banks said on Friday in a virtual hearing. \u201cIt has to do with the importance of adhering to the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corporation counsel Steven Banks said the case was not about the judge but about the rules. Robert Mecea<\/p>\n

Mastro, who announced to the court that Friday was his birthday, said it was valid for him to bring the case on Staten Island, arguing that because the Rent Guidelines Board represents the city\u2019s tenants and landlords, its decision will impact the borough\u2019s 8,200 rent-stabilized units.<\/p>\n

\u201cStaten Island may be smaller in population than the other boroughs in our city, but it is every bit as important, and it is just as affected by this decision as any other borough,\u201d Mastro argued.<\/p>\n

Deborah Reigel, also repping the landlords, said that the city\u2019s argument that Staten Island courtrooms were off-limits in this case because no rent freeze hearings were held in the borough \u201creally invites bad behavior,\u201d and could lead to city agencies avoiding holding meetings there in the future to stymie legal challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chantella Mitchell, chair of the Rent Guidelines Board, center, speaks prior to a vote by the Rent Guidelines Board on Thursday, June 25, 2026, in New York. New York City\u2019s Rent Guidelines Board voted to freeze rents for roughly one million stabilized apartments, handing Mayor Zohran Mamdani a major political victory. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But Porzio said Mastro and Reigel \u201cmisconstrued\u201d the rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe material event is not where the impact will be felt, but \u2026 where the proceedings were brought,\u201d he read from his order.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the rent regulations will apply in Richmond County \u2026 neither the decision complained, nor the process undertaken to arrive at that determination, have a material connection to Richmond County,\u201d Porizo\u2019s ruling read.<\/p>\n

While the decision is a small blow for Mastro and his clients, the case will still proceed as normal, with a later date in Manhattan for legal arguments on the merits of the challenge to be set soon, Porizo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Hall claimed an early win in a legal battle challenging Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s promised rent freeze, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2954,2850,57,9,24,55,54,56,564,566,134,58],"class_list":["post-326857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-landlords","tag-lawsuits","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-rent","tag-rent-stabilization","tag-staten-island","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326857","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=326857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}