Could This Be The Last Stabilized Rent Hike for Four Years?

The Rent Guidelines Board voted Monday night to permit rent increases of 3 percent on the city’s 2.4 million rent stabilized tenants. With Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani promising to freeze rent stabilized rents for four years, it could be the last increase for a while.

At last year’s Rent Guidelines Board final meeting, Zohran Mamdani was arrested outside, put  in handcuffs, and escorted off the premises. He and several other elected officials were protesting the board—which sets allowable rent increases for around 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the city—asking its members to freeze the rent.

“Every year tenants come out here and we tell stories about how rent burdened we are, how we can’t afford to live here… and it falls on deaf ears,” said Elisa Martinez, a rent stabilized tenant from Washington Heights.

This year, the mood was different.

Though he wasn’t there himself, the excitement around the democratic nominee for mayor’s proposal to freeze the rent during all four years as mayor was unmistakable.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who cross-endorsed with Mamdani during the primary, was there as surrogate.

“One million New Yorkers last Tuesday voted for candidates who said ‘freeze the rent,’” Lander said. “We are talking about people’s dreams to stay in their homes and raise their families… It’s not too much to ask.”

Dozens of tenants flanked Lander and filed into the Museo del Barrio in Harlem where the RGB meeting was scheduled, chanting “freeze the rent.”

And though they didn’t get their wish this year—the rent guidelines board voted to increase rents by 3 percent on one year leases and 4.5 percent on two year leases—some tenants left with a sense of optimism for next year, when they hoped Mamdani would be mayor.

“I feel like the energy is palpable today,” said Martinez, who helped organize tenants in support of a rent freeze. “Knowing that we’re gonna push a mayor into office in November that has promised to not only freeze our rent now, but to freeze it for four years.”

The 3 percent increase this year comes after three years of rent increases during Eric Adams’ administration, for a total of 12 percent on one-year leases over four years. The increases will affect new leases starting on or after Oct 1.

The increases are lower than property owners have pushed for. They say that costs, which rose 6 percent this year according to the board’s analysis, are rising faster than rents can keep up.

“While we are disappointed that the RGB once again adjusted rents below inflation, we appreciate that they stood up to political pressure calling for rent freezes that would accelerate the financial and physical deterioration of thousands of older rent-stabilized buildings.” said Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, in a statement.

Tenants say any increase is too much. “People definitely need a break, and we’re tired of being priced out of the city,” said Ander Lamothe, a tenant rallying for the freeze. Tenant groups point to the board’s research which shows a 12 percent increase in landlord profits. 

For some New Yorkers, a rent increase can mean the difference between staying in the city or having to leave. For Fracisca Guzman, a rent stabilized tenant in Sunset Park, it would mean that she could save more money for her daughter.

Guzman told City Limits in Spanish that her rent has continued to go up even as her landlord  fails to make repairs, she said.

“The tenants in this room are a fraction of the 20,000 tenants who committed to vote for a mayor who will freeze the rent,” said Ritti Singh, communications director with the New York State Tenants Bloc. “People are pissed off and we have a place to channel that in this [November].”

Alex Armlovich, one of the four public members of the board, voted yes to the proposed increases. He said that, more than the private landlords who said their buildings were vulnerable, he was compelled by nonprofit housing providers the Community Preservation Corporation who testified to the board.

“Everyone talks about opening the books, they did,” Armlovich told City Limits. According to a board report, 9 percent of buildings with rent stabilized units were in financial distress.

Howard Slatkin, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council,* raised the alarm about deteriorating rent stabilized housing stock in a City Limits oped earlier this month. “Failing to plan adequately for expenses shortchanges the well-being of residents and the future habitability of housing, regardless of who owns the building,” he wrote.

Every year, the board is caught in a tug-of-war between tenants and landlords.

The push and pull is by design: the board has two owner members, two landlord members, and five public members to represent the general public. For the past few years, that produced unhappy compromise: rents have gone up, but never as much as landlords have asked for.

Part of the difficulty is coming up with one number to suit a large, diverse stock of housing. Some of the rent stabilized housing stock are more than 50-year-old buildings that are entirely rent stabilized. Some have a mix of rent-regulated units and market rate units. Others are newer buildings constructed with state tax programs like 421a.

“The analysis is not comparing apples to apples,” said Ann Korchak with the group Small Property Owners of New York. “Small property owners that are operating off their rent will really need these rent increases. This is how we pay our expenses.”

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Rent Guidelines board froze the rent three times during his term.

Following the vote, Mayor Eric Adams—who is running against Mamdani in the general election, as an independent— criticized the idea of a rent freeze, saying it would result in “worsening housing conditions” for tenants, though also said he wanted a lower rent hike this year than where the RGB landed.  

“While the board exercised their independent judgment, and made an adjustment based on elements such as inflation, I am disappointed that they approved increases higher than what I called for,” Adams said in a statement.   

As Mamdani made freezing the rent a central tenet of his primary campaign for mayor, the board, its independence, and its decision-making processes have received even more scrutiny.

Mamdani has promised to upend the norms.

“Even a supposedly modest rent hike in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis will push New Yorkers out of their homes. But as voters showed last Tuesday, New Yorkers are ready for a city government that lowers costs instead of padding real estate profits,” Assemblymember Mamdani said in a statement. “Change is coming.”

*This story has been updated to correct Howard Slatkin’s title. City Limits regrets the error.

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