{"id":349288,"date":"2026-09-17T14:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349288\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:10:21","slug":"judge-orders-city-to-turn-over-communications-with-rgb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349288\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders city to turn over communications with RGB"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge has ordered the city to turn over communications between the mayor\u2019s office and the Rent Guidelines Board as landlords continue to challenge the board\u2019s decision<\/a> to freeze rents for rent-stabilized tenants.<\/p>\n

The judge ruled that all written communications between mayor\u2019s office personnel and board personnel from Jan. 1 to June 25 of this year must be turned over.<\/p>\n

The order stems from a lawsuit seeking to overturn the board\u2019s June decision to pause rent hikes<\/a> for one- and two-year leases signed on or after Oct. 1. The freeze applies to the city\u2019s approximately 1 million rent-stabilized apartments.<\/p>\n

The suit argues that the board\u2019s decision was influenced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who repeatedly promised during his mayoral campaign that he would freeze rents if elected<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Judge Brendan T. Lantry wrote that the lawsuit\u2019s allegations \u201chave raised significant concern to this court regarding the lawfulness of the Board\u2019s procedure\u201d in voting for a freeze. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court acknowledges that discovery in a special proceeding is rare. It is also rare (in fact, it is unprecedented) for a candidate for Mayor of New York City to guarantee that the Board, an entity that the parties concede is independent from the Mayor\u2019s Office, will freeze the rent upon his election to office,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The judge specifically highlighted a November 2024 campaign ad in which Mamdani said: \u201cAs mayor, I\u2019ll freeze the rent every year that I\u2019m in office… That\u2019s a guarantee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landlords in the lawsuit are seeking to have the rent freeze vacated and annulled. Their suit also seeks to have the board reconsider its decision and implement a rent increase.<\/p>\n

Randy Mastro, a lawyer representing the landlords, said in a statement that he was pleased with the order.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are gratified by the judge’s decision, and this targeted discovery goes to the heart of our position that this was a sham process with a predetermined outcome, and communications between the Mayor’s Office and the Rent Guidelines Board, which all parties admitted is supposed to be independent of the Mayor’s Office, should show that,\u201d Mastro said.<\/p>\n

The Rent Guidelines Board has argued its decision was \u201creasonable and rational, consistent with the Board\u2019s discretionary authority, and entirely lawful,\u201d according to the order.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a City Hall spokesperson said: \u201cThe Law Department will continue to vigorously defend the Rent Guidelines Board, and we stand by our position that the RGB acted appropriately upon its review of the full body of data presented to the Board.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge has ordered the city to turn over communications between the mayor\u2019s office and the Rent Guidelines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2908,25,576,2907,9,24,55,54,12,56,27],"class_list":["post-349288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-app-housing","tag-app-top-stories","tag-erica-brosnan","tag-housing","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349288","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=349288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}