The New York City Rent Guidelines Board has approved a rent freeze on one-year and two-year contracts. About two million residents of rent-stabilized apartments will be able to take advantage of this measure. reports Associated Press. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for whom housing affordability was a key issue during his election campaign, called the decision “a historic victory for New York renters.”
On Thursday, the Council decided to freeze rent on one-year and, for the first time in the city's history, two-year leases effective October. Seven members of the Council voted for the freeze, one was against, writes Reuters.
“This is a historic victory for New York City renters. After analyzing available data and discussing with city residents, the independent Rent Control Board decided to freeze rent on one-year leases and, for the first time in our city's history, on two-year leases. This is the kind of support that the working residents of our city deserve,” said Mamdani.
Although formally the decision is made by an independent body, its members are appointed by the mayor. In his first months in office, Mamdani appointed six of the nine members of the Council. Hours before the vote, the body's landlord representative, Christina Smith, resigned, saying the mayor's actions had ensured a predictable outcome.
“The Rent Control Board is no longer an objective fact-finding body. It is now a structure that first defines the desired outcome and then develops arguments to justify it,” Smith wrote in her resignation letter, published by The Associated Press.
Real estate industry officials warn the rent freeze will hit homeowners, who will find it harder to pay for ongoing building maintenance and repairs amid rising costs and inflation. Critics of rental regulation also argue that such policies lead to higher prices for market-rate apartments.
The problem is so serious that the New York City Residential Property Owners and Managers Association estimates there are about 50,000 so-called “ghost apartments” in the city—rent-stabilized apartments that owners choose to keep empty because they doubt they can afford the costs of maintaining them. The Washington Post writes about this.
The Council's decision is expected to be challenged in court.
Today, nearly two million people live in rent-stabilized apartments, which make up approximately 40% of New York City's housing stock. Despite the fact that such apartments are privately owned, it is the City Council that annually determines the maximum allowable level of rent increases.
The practice of freezing has been used before, most recently under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Since his departure in 2021, rents for such apartments have increased by about 3% annually.
As the Associated Press notes, despite the expected outcome of the vote, the decision was an important political victory for Mamdani amid criticism of his ability to deliver on promises to make life more affordable in the city. It also came just two days after another success: three candidates backed by the mayor won the New York Democratic primary. Two of them, like Mamdani himself, are members of the New York branch of the Democratic Socialists of America. As The Washington Post noted, this was a testament to the strength of Mamdani's political brand and the democratic socialist movement. RTVI.US spoke about these elections in detail.
