In the Monday night vote, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted 5-4 to approve a rent hike up to 4.5% for residents of the city’s almost 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The board approved a rent increase of 3% for one-year leases and 4.5% for two-year leases that begin October 1st. The vote took place at El Museo Del Barrio in East Harlem.
The Board, made entirely up of Mayor Eric Adams’s appointees, includes two tenant representatives and two landlord representatives. Mayor Adams responded with disappointment to the vote, stating, “I urged the Rent Guidelines Board to adopt the lowest increase possible, as I’ve done in the past. 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.”
Prior to Monday’s vote, the Board voted in early May to increase rent for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments by at least 4.75% for two-year leases, which was then scaled back to a minimum of 3.75%. The maximum possible increase was set to 7.75%.
The vote comes in the midst of New York City’s Mayoral Election, which has centered around issues of affordability for New Yorkers. Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani has promoted a “rent freeze” throughout his campaign. Mayor Eric Adams falls somewhere in the middle of the debate, calling the high end of the range of rent hikes “far too unreasonable of a burden for tenants.” However, he also promised landlords at a Brooklyn Town Hall in June that he would oppose a rent freeze, stating, “I’m not going to play politics with your assets.”
It is clear, however, that New York City faces a housing and affordability crisis. In the weeks leading up to the significant vote, the Rent Guidelines Board held five public hearings and received over 200 video testimonies from tenants and landlords alike.
The vote has been received with outrage from New York City’s tenants, and Democratic Nominee Zohran Mamdani was quick to respond. He said in a statement, “This Mayor is once again placating real estate donors rather than serving the working people he once claimed to champion. Make no mistake: even a supposedly modest rent hike in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis will push New Yorkers out of their homes.”
Mayor Eric Adams countered Zohran Mamdani’s statement, voicing his concerns over a rent freezing policy. Mayor Adams said, “Rent may be on the rise, but so are deteriorating housing conditions — including inadequate heat and heating breakdowns, mice and rat problems, mold, and leaks — especially for New Yorkers in rent-stabilized housing.”
He continued, “Demands to ‘freeze the rent’ would exacerbate these harmful health and safety issues inside the homes of more than 1 million New Yorkers by depriving owners of the resources needed to make repairs — a cruel and dangerous proposal. While freezing the rent may sound like a catchy slogan, it is bad policy, short-sighted, and only puts tenants in harm’s way.”
If elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani has pledged to elect members to the Rent Guideline Board who would never vote to increase rents for tenants in the roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the city. Mamdani seeks to make New York City more affordable for low to middle-income residents.
