The Rent Guidelines Board Votes

**David First** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, I'm David First, filling in for Brian today.
Last night, The Rent Guidelines Board voted seven to one to freeze rents on the city's roughly one million rent stabilized apartments for the next two years. That's a first in the board's history, and it delivers on a signature promise of Mayor Mamdani's campaign. But a landlord member quit the board hours before the vote. The real estate industry is furious, and a legal challenge may be coming. Here to walk us through what just happened and what comes next is David Brand, who covers housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Welcome back.

**David Brand** (0:50)
Thank you.

**David First** (0:51)
And just to give us a little flavor here, here's a little bit of what it sounded like last night. And in case you can't make that out, that is freeze the rent, freeze the rent. So David, what exactly did the board decide last night?

**David Brand** (1:11)
Well, they decided to freeze the rent just as the tenants who were in attendance yesterday were chanting about and as listeners are probably familiar with that viral campaign slogan that really propelled Mayor Mamdani's campaign last year to freeze the rent, one of the pillars of his campaign. Well, Rent Guidelines Board delivered the first ever two-year rent freeze.

**David First** (1:34)
What does this cover? What does it leave out?

**David Brand** (1:37)
Sure. So this covers about a million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. The rent-stabilized housing stock is a really diverse collection of apartment buildings. You have century-old apartment buildings with 100% rent-stabilized apartments.
Because the rules apply to buildings with six or more units that were built before 1974 But there's also tens of thousands of apartments in newer buildings that received tax breaks from the state property tax abatement program or government subsidies in exchange for keeping rents affordable. Those units are also subject to the rent-stabilization rules. So nearly a million apartments, about 2.3 million tenants living in it. About 40% of the city's housing stock is going to have a big impact.

**David First** (2:29)
When does it actually take effect?

**David Brand** (2:30)
Takes effect on leases starting October 1st of this year.

**David First** (2:35)
Okay. So put this in some bigger context. You've already made it very clear this is a big deal. But how does a two-year freeze compare to what tenants saw under former mayors Bill de Blasio, Eric Adams?

**David Brand** (2:47)
Well, we've talked about it being a big deal, I guess, politically, because this was Mamdani's pre-campaign pledge and the board he appointed fulfilled that pledge. It will have a big impact for tenants, especially lower-income tenants who are seeing their costs rise across the board. And now they say, well, I'll have at least some certainty or at least I know that my rent's not going to increase for the next two years while everything else rises.
Landlords say it has a big impact on them too, especially in these 100% rent-stabilized buildings where they're complaining about already facing financial distress with their expenses rising and their operating costs going up and they say they need higher rents to offset those. But to take a step back and compare it to Mayor Adams, Mamdani's predecessor, under Adams, the board raised rents by a combined 12% over four years. Last year, it was a 3% increase. Under de Blasio, it was a much lower combined increase. De Blasio actually presided over three rent freezes, though those are on one-year leases.

**David First** (3:52)
Okay. And listeners, if you'd like to join this conversation, give us a call for, excuse me, 212-433-9692. Do you live in a rent stabilized apartment? What does a two-year freeze mean for you? And if you're a landlord, we want to hear from you as well. What does this decision cost you? Call us or text us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
And how much of a victory lap should Mamdani be taking here? How significant a victory is this? Coming in a week when all of his endorsed candidates won their primary elections.

**David Brand** (4:35)
He's kind of on a generational run this week. It seems like he had the sweep of the congressional candidates and a lot of socialist candidates for state office who are allies of his also won. And then two days later, he presides over this rent freeze that he guaranteed on the campaign trail. So it is a political victory.

**David First** (4:53)
As you've been talking about, he ran on this promise to freeze the rent, but the mayor doesn't actually set these rates. How much control does he actually have here? He did appoint, what, six of the nine members. So that reshaped the board.