Opinion: Vote for a Mayor Who Will Freeze the Rent

“Freezing the rent is a critical way to ensure that New York remains home to the people who built it and the people who make it sing.”

Editor’s Note: City Limits has offered similar op-ed space to the other primary candidates running for NYC mayor this year to share their housing plans. If you’re a candidate interested in submitting a piece, email [email protected].

Read Scott Stringer’s housing pitch here, and Michael Blake’s here.

Record-high rents are chasing tenants out of our city. Eviction cases are surging and homelessness is at its highest point since the Great Depression. Last year, almost a quarter of rent stabilized tenants were behind on rent, and 20 percent reached the end of a month with no money left.

Tenants pushed out of affordable homes have nowhere to go—the city’s rental vacancy rate sits at just 1.4 percent, and only 0.98 percent for the roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments across the five boroughs. Fifty-four percent of New Yorkers have considered leaving the city due to housing costs. Put simply: as housing costs rise, more tenants face eviction and homelessness. For every 5 percent increase in rent we have 3,000 more homeless individuals.

In this election, New Yorkers have a choice. They can vote for Andrew Cuomo, who is beholden to real estate donors, and who as governor saw New York City rental prices jump a whopping 52 percent. Or they can vote for me, who recognizes the scale of the housing crisis New Yorkers face and will respond by freezing the rent and building affordable housing with city-backing. 

Because I recognize the scale of this crisis, I will take a kitchen sink approach that unleashes the power of the public sector to build hundreds of thousands of affordable, rent-stabilized apartments. As mayor I will fast track private developments that meet affordability, labor, and sustainability goals, overhaul enforcement systems to crack down on bad landlords, double investment in public housing, and create a comprehensive rezoning plan for the city. We cannot afford to let projects languish in endless review, processes that are sometimes weaponized by billionaires to stall projects that benefit working people. 

Beyond these new homes, I will also take immediate and decisive action to stop rising housing costs by freezing the rent for all New Yorkers in rent stabilized units. Doing so will save the city’s 2.4 million rent-stabilized tenants nearly $7 billion over four years—keeping families in their homes, creating stability for communities, and reinvesting money in our local economy. That’s why I’ve made freezing the rent for all four years of my administration a centerpiece of my campaign.

Freezing rents on stabilized apartments is a practical policy. Each year the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), composed of nine members appointed unilaterally by the mayor, weighs landlord costs against burdens for tenants before deciding on one-year and two-year rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments.

The RGB has frozen the rent three times in the past decade, but under Eric Adams, it has increased the rent by 9 percent—more than the previous eight years combined. Andrew Cuomo would pick up right where Adams left off: The landlord lobby has put $2.7 million behind Cuomo’s campaign, the largest outside spending of any group this election. They expect a return on that investment if he wins, and it would come out of your pocket.

Meanwhile, a rent freeze will provide immediate relief to the New Yorkers who need it the most. Low-income New Yorkers are more likely to live rent-stabilized apartments than any other type of housing, as are Black and Latino New Yorkers. Rent-stabilized housing is immigrant housing: over 40 percent of regulated tenants were born in another country. These tenants are contending with huge increases for other costs, like a 12.3 percent rise in electricity costs in 2024, with a 13 percent rate hike projected for this year. 

While tenants suffer, landlords are profiting. Last year, the net operating incomes of landlords skyrocketed 12.1 percent in buildings containing rent stabilized units, rent collection increased in every district in the city, and the number of buildings in financial distress declined. This is far from a one-year blip—between 1990 and 2023, landlords’ net operating incomes rose 48 percent for buildings with at least one rent-stabilized unit, and rent collection rose over 250 percent. 

While over 80 percent of stabilized apartments are owned by large, corporate landlords who have no trouble affording building maintenance, and most private landlords are making a profit, it’s true that some small landlords need assistance maintaining their buildings. The city has a number of important programs to support these landlords, including the Major Capital Improvements and Individual Apartment Improvements, the soon-to-be relaunched Landlord Ambassador Program, the J-51 tax abatement program, the Participation Loan Program, and the Multifamily Housing Rehabilitation Loan Program.

The state’s rent stabilization law also allows landlords with high operating costs to apply for adjusted rent hikes, provided they open their books and prove hardship. I am committed to maintaining these programs to ensure safe, stable housing for all New Yorkers.

Freezing the rent is a critical way to ensure that New York remains home to the people who built it and the people who make it sing. Tenants make up the majority of this city. Rising rents aren’t just a problem isolated to a few unlucky renters; they affect everyone. When New Yorkers can’t afford the rent, they also struggle to pay for food, transportation, and healthcare. Parents have less time to spend with their children and artists have less time to make art. The housing crisis threatens the very essence of what makes New York City so great.

That’s why I’m proud to have led the way in this fight. Since I began my campaign last October with a pledge to freeze the rent, six other mayoral candidates have joined me in the call for a one-year freeze, though I remain the only candidate committed to freezing rents for my full term. Mayor Adams and Andrew Cuomo, who have both received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from some of the city’s most powerful landlords, have outright refused to back the rent freeze, in effect promising to raise rents on millions of suffering tenants, no matter the effects.

Despite the out-of-touch opinions of candidates backed by big real estate, this city knows freezing the rent is common sense. Polling shows 83 percent of New Yorkers support a rent freeze, including more than 60 percent of Republicans. A rent freeze is supported by the people, it’s supported by the numbers, and it’s time to make it a reality.

To the Rent Guidelines Board I say: freeze the rent. To the voters of New York City I say: on June 24, vote for a mayor who will.

Zohran Mamdani is a member of the NYS Assembly representing Astoria, Queens. He is currently running in the Democratic primary for mayor.