Rents for New York City’s roughly 1 million regulated apartments will rise starting in October, the Rent Guidelines Board voted Monday.
The nine-member panel of mayoral appointees elected to raise rent by 3% on new one-year leases and 4.5% on two-year leases at its annual hearing inside the Museo del Barrio in East Harlem. The increases are higher than the minimum of the range the board voted on in the spring and will take effect on leases signed on or after Oct. 1.
Landlord advocates on the board argued at the meeting that the increases are necessary to maintain older, crumbling rent-stabilized buildings. Tenant-advocate board members countered that renters are facing dire financial circumstances.
The board’s always-contentious decision, and its composition, have received more scrutiny than ever before as it coincides with a heated mayoral race.
Presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblymember from Queens, was arrested while protesting last year’s increase and has made the vote a core pillar of his campaign. He did not show up at Monday’s vote. But if elected mayor, he’s pledged to appoint board members who would never vote for an increase.
City Comptroller Brad Lander, who cross-endorsed Mamdani in last week’s primary and has become something of a surrogate for his campaign, joined demonstrators outside the building ahead of the vote. He urged the board to defy its own guidance from last month for a rent increase.
“If there was ever a moment for a rent freeze, it is right now,” Lander told the crowd. “If they don’t do it, we can get rid of this Rent Guidelines Board and bring some new folks in next year.”
Mamdani’s slogan, “Freeze the Rent,” is part of a platform focused on affordability for everyday New Yorkers that has galvanized tenants even as it has prompted sharp rebukes from landlords. It’s also drawn skepticism from his political opponents and many housing experts.
Mayor Eric Adams has criticized calls for a rent freeze, arguing it will only make already deteriorating housing conditions worse. Ahead of the vote on Monday, he had instead urged the board to “adopt the lowest increase possible.”
After the vote, Adams released a statement expressing disappointment with the board’s decision, but he said the board alone cannot solve the city’s housing crisis. He pointed to his administration’s efforts to build more housing through a package of zoning reforms passed earlier this year.
“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,” Adams said.
During the first three years of Adams’s term, the board voted to raise rents by a combined 9%. Before that, the board increased rents by just 6% during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s eight years as mayor and opted to freeze rents on three occasions.
But the legal landscape was far different for most of de Blasio’s tenure. Landlords could raise rent by 20% on vacant apartments and remove units from the rent-stabilization system once rent reached a certain threshold, until a set of state laws strengthened tenant protections in 2019.
Over the past four months, board members heard testimony from renters, property owners and housing experts at a series of public hearings and considered research into the financial situation facing tenants and landlords.
“For me, a rent freeze really means that like people like my dad can retire in New York City and actually continue living in the same apartment,” said Elisa Martinez, a Washington Heights tenant and organizer, outside the vote Monday.
Martinez, 29, said her father is a handyman contemplating retirement but would earn too much to qualify for senior rent freeze programs.
Households living in rent-stabilized apartments earn a median income of $60,000 a year, far below the city median of nearly $80,000, while the number of those who receive cash assistance — a benefit program for the lowest income New Yorkers — rose by over 16%, according to a board report. Tenants, their advocates and many elected officials warn that those numbers reveal a precarious and worsening financial situation for most New York City renters.
The board’s decision to increase rent “will no doubt deepen tenant hardship and accelerate New York City’s affordability crisis,” said Samuel Stein, senior policy analyst for the Community Service Society of New York.
Stein also cited the effect that major proposed federal spending cuts — including the elimination of funding for housing code inspectors — would have on low-income renters.
The five boroughs are also facing a serious housing shortage: Less than 1% of the city’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments are vacant, according to the city’s most recent housing survey. Tenants in rent-stabilized units pay a median rent of $1,500 a month, board research shows.
Reports compiled by Rent Guidelines Board staff also found landlords’ expenses rose by about 6% last year, though their profits, known as net operating income, increased by around 12%. Owners and their advocates cautioned that a spike in profits among building owners in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn masked more modest gains elsewhere in the city, and even sharp decreases in the Bronx and other areas.
About 9% of buildings with one or more rent-stabilized apartments are facing financial distress, according to a board report, meaning owners’ expenses and debts are higher than their revenue.
Ann Korchak, board president of the trade group Small Property Owners of New York, said Monday’s decision “failed” landlords. She called for a new system that allows owners of smaller, distressed properties to raise rents by higher amounts.
The majority of rent-stabilized apartments are located in buildings with six or more units constructed before 1974, the year new tenant protection laws took effect. The regulations also apply to apartments in newer buildings subject to tax breaks, low-interest loans or other subsidies from the city or state.
Landlords are legally required to notify tenants if their apartment is rent-stabilized as part of the initial lease and each subsequent renewal. Tenants can also find out if their apartment is rent-stabilized by contacting the state’s Department of Homes and Community Renewal and requesting a rent history.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
