The New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted 7–1 to freeze rents on about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments for up to two years, giving tenants a win on a central campaign promise from Mayor Zohran Mamdani while revealing tensions over the board’s independence.
The board set the annual increase at zero percent for both one-year and two-year leases starting in October. The affected apartments house roughly 2.5 million residents. The board’s 2025 study found the average monthly rent in regulated units was $1,599 last year, far below the $3,950 that listings agency StreetEasy said was the median for new market-rate leases citywide.
As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, the decision comes after the board’s usual review of wages, inflation, maintenance costs, taxes, and landlord incomes. Tenants at public hearings called for a freeze or outright reduction, citing stagnant pay and higher living costs. Landlord representatives argued that a zero percent increase would hurt building upkeep and mortgage payments. Some owners have offset losses by raising rents on unregulated apartments, the board was told.
Mamdani, who took office in January, appointed six of the nine board members. Hours ahead of the vote, landlord representative Christina Smyth, appointed by the prior mayor, resigned. She said the panel had been rebuilt to produce this outcome.
“This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze,” Smyth said. “Everything since has been theater.”
Board Chair Chantella Mitchell, a Mamdani appointee, maintained that the board and its staff served with full independence and integrity. The other landlord representative, Maksim Wynn, also a Mamdani appointee, drew boos from tenant advocates at the Manhattan proceedings but voted for the freeze. The crowd erupted with cheers and whistles when the outcome was announced.
Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York, called the vote a farce.
“Defunding rent-stabilized housing when the [Rent Guidelines Board’s] own data showed a 5.3 percent increase in operational costs and expenses is setting up already financially distressed small owners for failure, which plays into Mamdani’s sinister plan to illegally take private property and convert it into socialized housing,” she told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
Mamdani called the vote a breakthrough.
“This is a historic victory for New York City tenants,” he said in a statement. “This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”
The action marks the first major delivery on Mamdani’s housing agenda. The democratic socialist mayor campaigned explicitly on freezing rents for regulated apartments and holds sole authority to appoint the Rent Guidelines Board’s members. In May, Mamdani unveiled a broader “Block by Block” housing plan that calls for building 200,000 new units over 10 years while preserving another 200,000 through subsidies or other measures, including potential property interventions.
Previous rent freezes under former Mayor Bill de Blasio covered only one-year leases. Thursday’s vote applies to both lease terms and follows weeks of hearings and a rally outside El Museo Del Barrio that drew hundreds of tenants.
The board’s action applies only to rent-stabilized units, primarily in pre-1974 buildings or those that received certain tax benefits. Market-rate apartments remain unaffected.
Mamdani, whose campaign promised to pursue affordability, moved into the mayor’s official residence after his election. Before that, he lived in a rent-regulated one-bedroom apartment in Queens.