NYC enacts rent freeze on 1M stabilized units after Mamdani accused of stacking board: ‘Absolute farce’

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board approved Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s key campaign promise to “freeze the rent” on Thursday — in a move landlord advocates slammed as “an absolute farce.”

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The board passed a rent freeze on both one-year and two-year leases for the Big Apple’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized units in a 7-1 vote. Arpit Gupta, an appointee of Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams, was the one no vote.

It came hours after the public resignation of one of the RGB’s nine members, Christina Smyth, who accused the panel of ignoring its own data during the lengthy process to decide whether to adjust rents — claiming the decision was made “last year on the campaign trail.” 

The board “stopped being a fact-finding body” and was rebuilt “to deliver a rent freeze” no matter what, Smyth, one of two landlord advocates on the board, wrote in her scathing resignation letter.

“Everything else has been theater,” she wrote. “The hearings, the reports, the public comment, the data. None of it was ever going to change the result.”

Smyth was one of three members appointed by former Mayor Adams. Mamdani appointed the other six members after taking office this year.

Hizzoner has repeatedly claimed that the board is independent, noting it had been conducting “both fact finding as well as testimonies” for months before the highly anticipated vote.

“This is a historic victory for New York City tenants. After reviewing the data and hearing from New Yorkers across the city, the independent RGB has delivered a freeze on one-year leases, and the first-ever freeze on two-year leases in our city’s history,” Mamdani said in a statement after the win.

“This is the relief that working people across our city deserve,” he added.

The vote, during a meeting at El Museo del Barrio in Upper Manhattan, sparked an eruption of cheers from the crowd of mostly tenant groups.

But landlords have been sounding the alarm for months on the dangers of a rent freeze while costs continue to skyrocket.

A report released by the Rent Guidelines Board in April showed rent-stabilized housing insurance soared 10.5% in 2026 year-over-year, while fuel and maintenance rose 11% and 6%, respectively.

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“The resignation of the only principled RGB member and the board’s only meaningful advocate for small owners validated our greatest fear, that the majority Mamdani-appointed RGB would cave to the political demands of City Hall,” said Ann Korchak, board president of the Small Property Owners of New York.

James Whelan, the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, also blasted the rent freeze as a “terrible decision.”

“The Rent Guidelines Board ignored its own data and made a terrible decision tonight. Older rent-stabilized buildings are already struggling under rising operating costs, yet the Board chose to disregard those realities,” Whelan said in a statement. 

“This decision will mean less investment in maintenance and repairs, accelerating the deterioration of the housing stock that millions of New Yorkers call home. Tonight’s vote may be politically popular, but it will make New York’s housing crisis worse.”

Maksim Wynn, a Mamdani-appointed landlord representative, gave a lengthy speech at the meeting acknowledging landlords’ struggles — but ultimately said the rent freeze was in their best interest.

“There is a substantial subset of housing stock in distress,” Wynn told the crowd. “Still, a 0% increase on 1 and 2-year leases is in landlords’ best interest.”

The RGB has only frozen the rent three times in its history — all under Mayor Bill de Blasio, in 2015, 2016 and again in 2020, and all for one-year timeframes.

Mamdani’s political home, the Democratic Socialists of America, was already touting the win on Thursday ahead of the vote. 

“Just days after our candidates sweep their elections, we’re going to deliver a rent freeze for millions of New Yorkers!”

Mamdani unveiled a plan in April for a new, privately run city-backed insurance program aimed at reducing costs in rent-stabilized buildings. But City Hall has yet to release key details on the initiative set to launch in 2027.

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