New York City has approved a freeze on rent increases for nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments, marking the fulfillment of a key campaign promise by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The 7-1 vote by the city's Rent Guidelines Board on Thursday freezes rents for both one-year and two-year leases on stabilized units. “This is a historic victory for New York tenants,” Mamdani said in a statement to Al Jazeera. “This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”
Rent-stabilized apartments are those in buildings constructed between 1947 and 1974 with more than six units, or those covered by tax incentive programs. The regulations protect tenants from steep annual rent hikes but apply to only about 41% of the city's rental housing stock. The board considered factors including taxes, wages, and inflation when making its decision.
Mamdani campaigned on a promise to freeze rents, a central issue that helped him win City Hall in the nation's most populous city. However, the vote was contentious. Two days before the vote, Christina Smyth, a landlord representative appointed by former Mayor Eric Adams, resigned, alleging the board lacked independence. In a letter, Smyth said the rent freeze was preordained. “It has become a body that starts with an answer and works backwards to justify it,” she wrote.
City Hall did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment on Smyth's allegations. Board Chair Chantella Mitchell, appointed by Mamdani, dismissed the claims in a letter, asserting the board operates independently. Critics have long warned that rent-stabilized apartments drive up prices for unregulated units, which comprise the majority of the city's rentals. In response, Mamdani told Al Jazeera in April that his administration is pushing to build more housing citywide to increase supply and lower prices. “We are looking at every tool possible to address the housing crisis,” he said at the time. “In the medium and long term, we want to build a lot more housing than we've seen in this city recently.”
In March, Mamdani's administration launched a new program to accelerate affordable housing construction on city-owned properties by cutting red tape. The city created a pre-approved developer pool, shortening the process by eight months, along with faster land-use approvals that can speed up construction projects by up to two years.
