Both inside and outside the Rent Guidelines Board’s public hearing Thursday, tenants and landlords shouted, booed, and jeered at each other in almost equal measure over future rents for regulated apartments.
Dozens of tenants and left-leaning organizers gathered outside in downtown Brooklyn Thursday afternoon, eating roti and curry, enjoying music from a live DJ, and listening to speakers at a rally awaiting the public hearing for the Rent Guidelines Board.
Then a horde of zombies crossed the street.
For about a minute, as the groups collided on the corner of Jay and Tillary streets, it looked like battle lines were drawn; chants of “rent freeze!” were met with theatrical moans and groans. Landlords, marching alongside their undead allies, argue a freeze would create more “zombie” apartments—rent-regulated units left empty, they say, because they can’t afford to maintain them.
Slowly, the pro-landlord coalition, led by the Gotham Housing Alliance, passed by without an issue and set up its own press rally in front of the entrance to City College of Technology, where the rent board was set to meet.
Such was the scene both before and during the hearing, where tenants and landlords shouted, booed, and jeered at each other in almost equal measure. The board is weighing potential rent adjustments for the city’s nearly 1 million rent-regulated apartments, changes that would take effect this fall.
Tenants say that they are stretched thin, and with rising utility and grocery prices, and that a rent freeze would allow them to breathe. Landlords, on the other hand, say that the costs of managing and repairing rent-stabilized buildings are high as well, and that a rent freeze would make it untenable to continue managing those units.
Humberto Lopes, the founder of Gotham Housing Alliance, told City Limits that the “zombies” were paid actors—bussed in for the gig, some apparently unaware of their destination—wearing makeup and tattered clothes to symbolize tens of thousands of warehoused units, or vacant apartments that landlords choose to keep empty rather than operate at a loss. Those apartments could enter the market if they were temporarily rent-destabilized, he and other owners argue.
In response to questions about tenants who are struggling to pay rent, Lopes seemed incredulous. “There’s so much free money, it’s not even funny,” he said.
Renette Bradley had arrived early to help set up the tenants’ block party, and she later served as an emcee for the rally. A long-time rent-stabilized tenant in Cypress Hills and member of Housing Justice for All, Bradley said that landlords need to start putting people over profits.
“The city has a lot of resources for landlords; if the landlords would use the resources, they wouldn’t have to worry about raising the rent on us,” said Bradley. “They make it seem like we don’t want to pay our rent, but that’s not true. We want to pay our rent, but we can’t afford to pay the damn rent.”
Outside, the landlords’ coalition and the tenants’ bloc primarily stayed with their own groups. When the hearing began, people from different sides of the aisle had some choice words for each other. At one point, three presumed building owners—two of whom carried signs with the Gotham Housing Alliance logo—were surrounded by people calling for a rent freeze; in response, one of them shouted “You can freeze my nuts!”
a rent freeze outside. (Casey Wetherbee/City Limits)
Sophia Hepheastou, a landlord of several rent-stabilized buildings in the Bronx, was also in line, chanting “raise the rent!” She told City Limits that she and many other rent-stabilized housing managers are operating in the red, and that the rent freeze debate had become politicized.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on the promise of a rent freeze, following four years of rent increases under form Mayor Eric Adams (the mayor appoints the Rent Guidelines Board members, though they’re expected to operate independently).
In May, the board held a preliminary vote to advance rent adjustments between 0 to 2 percent for one-year leases and 0 to 4 percent for two-year leases, meaning the final vote will likely land within those ranges.
“If this rent board was uninfluenced by politicians and Mamdani, they would have to look at the math and say a freeze is not warranted,” said Hepheastou. “If you want to freeze the rent, you have to freeze property taxes, you have to freeze utilities, you have to freeze insurance, water bills. You cannot freeze rent while all these things continue to go up.”
But all parties seemed to align on one thing: the city’s policies to alleviate the housing crisis have not been working.
State Senator Stephen Chan, who testified at the hearing against a rent freeze, accused the city itself of being the “worst landlord”—pointing to billions in needed repairs at NYCHA. Chan told City Limits that the city has too many of its own problems to be worried about “picking the pockets of small landlords.”
Scenes from inside the hearing. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who represents parts of central Brooklyn west of Prospect Park, also testified early on in favor of a rent freeze.
“Families are cutting back, taking on debt, and making impossible choices just to stay housed,” she said. “Rent stabilized housing is the last line of defense against displacement.”
As the auditorium filled up, many speakers’ testimonies were drowned out by voices from the opposition. Tenants interrupted landlords with boos and quips like “get a job!”; members of Gotham Housing Alliance touted their “landlord for a day” program to introduce tenants to the difficulties of managing property. Members of the Crown Heights Tenant Union even called for a rent rollback, rather than a mere freeze.
The Rent Guidelines Board will hold one more public hearing on June 16 in Manhattan before voting on rent adjustments for rent-stabilized housing units on June 25.
Here’s what else happened this week in housing:
ICYMI, from City Limits:
- Inspections by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development are one of the only tools NYCHA tenants have for securing overdue repairs. But tenants and legal advocates say scheduling snafus make those fights even harder.
- Every homeless shelter in New York will be required to have Wi-Fi under a state bill passed by lawmakers in Albany Friday—what supporters say will help close a long-standing digital divide that’s left thousands of unhoused adults behind.
- Here’s an update on how tenants in the Pinnacle portfolio—5,000 rent regulated apartments across the city—are faring two months after their buildings were sold at bankruptcy to a new owner.
ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:
- Get to know Jose Alvarado, the only native New Yorker who plays for the Knicks and who grew up in NYCHA’s Berry Street Houses, according to Gothamist.
- A new report examines inequities in New York City’s property tax system, which Mamdani has pledged to overhaul, The City Reporter reports.
- The city wants to build affordable housing over more public libraries, according to the New York Times.
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