With town dealing with a housing and affordability disaster, a hire freeze may be very a lot on the minds of New Yorkers — and on the poll on this month’s Democratic major election.
The Lease Pointers Board (RGB) is getting ready to vote June 27 on a doable hire improve for rent-stabilized buildings, and advocates on either side are sounding off, every warning that the choice has critical ramifications for tenants and the viability of New York Metropolis’s housing inventory.
The mayor-appointed, nine-member board will quickly resolve whether or not town’s 2.4 million rent-stabilized tenants pays between 3.75% and seven.75% extra for two-year leases, or 1.75% to 4.75% extra for one-year leases beginning in October — or don’t have any improve, generally known as a “rent freeze.”
Both method, the choice will influence many New Yorkers. About half of town’s rental residences, about one million whole, are rent-stabilized. Most rental residences constructed earlier than 1974 with greater than six models are rent-stabilized, as are all of the newer city-subsidized reasonably priced residences receiving particular tax breaks.
Which means these many properties are topic to the Lease Pointers Board’s annual choices about whether or not or to not improve the hire — with an RGB vote being their solely technique of doing so.
The RGB beneath Mayor Eric Adams has voted to extend rents annually of his tenure, totaling a 9% improve over the previous three years. Against this, rents have been frozen 3 times beneath former Mayor Invoice de Blasio, in 2015, 2016 and 2020.
The thought of a hire freeze has widespread approval immediately, in accordance with a latest ballot. An April 2025 survey by the left-leaning suppose tank Knowledge for Progress confirmed that 78% of possible New York Metropolis voters assist a hire freeze. Considerably, it had bipartisan assist, with 83% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans saying they favored it, the ballot discovered.
Supporters argue that property homeowners don’t want a hire improve as a result of they’re already turning a revenue. They contend that landlords can cowl their upkeep and working bills with out elevating rents.
However homeowners say a hire improve is important to maintain up with rising prices of insurance coverage, utilities, labor and extra. They are saying the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Safety Act (HSTPA) considerably restricted their means to lift rents or recuperate the prices of constructing upgrades, proscribing them to solely the modest will increase set by the Lease Pointers Board. This monetary strain, they warn, threatens the long-term viability of rent-stabilized buildings and will result in the deterioration or lack of reasonably priced housing throughout town.
Members of the New York Metropolis Lease Pointers Board vote on proposed hire will increase for rent-stabilized residences throughout a public assembly at LaGuardia Performing Arts Heart on April 30.Photograph from RGB/YouTube
“Public Enemy No. 1”
The 2019 regulation appeared to mark a turning level in tenants’ favor — and have become “Public Enemy No. 1″ for homeowners, because the industrial actual property outlet Bisnow referred to it.
For one, the regulation restricted how a lot the RGB can improve rents, setting the max at 7.5% for one-year leases, or a mean of the final 5 will increase.
The regulation additionally capped the quantity landlords can elevate hire in trade for pricey repairs, akin to roof replacements, new plumbing or new boiler methods, of their buildings and in particular person residences after a tenant leaves. Since many rent-stabilized tenants stay of their properties for many years and even generations, it may be very pricey to rehab them upon emptiness — and a few homeowners say the cap prevents them from recouping the prices.
Cuomo signed the 2019 tenant-friendly legal guidelines as governor however now appears to be backing off his assist. Notably, the PAC supporting his marketing campaign, Housing For All, has many wealthy donors with ties to actual property and has obtained donations from some homeowners being sued by town for neglecting the properties they personal. With a deliberate $2.5 million spend on Cuomo’s behalf, Housing For All not too long ago turned the highest donor to any mayoral candidate.
Whatever the politics, the 2019 adjustments, to not point out the hardships of the pandemic that quickly adopted, marked a serious shift within the metropolis’s reasonably priced housing panorama.
Some say the regulation ended up screwing homeowners, whereas others argue that the regulation protects tenants from getting screwed by landlords
The politics of a hire freeze
Tenant advocates have made a hire freeze a key subject within the upcoming major, notably for these working for mayor.
Supporters of the freeze argue that rent-stabilized tenants—who characterize town’s lower- to middle-income earners—are struggling to maintain housing prices manageable as bills for groceries, utilities, and different necessities proceed to rise.
In accordance with 2022 RGB knowledge, the median rent-stabilized family earns $60,000, in comparison with $70,000 for all renters, and the median hire for these models is $1,500.
A number of Democratic mayoral candidates have come out in favor of a minimum of a one-year freeze, whereas Andrew Cuomo, the present front-runner, stands alone in opposition, citing the elevated prices of sustaining properties.
In his 28-page housing coverage, Cuomo mentioned, “[A rent freeze] is a politically convenient posture, but if landlords — small landlords in particular — do not receive rent increases that reflect their costs, they will be unable to maintain their buildings.”
“While this is a political year, this is not a political decision,” he mentioned in a marketing campaign assertion. “The board must ultimately balance the economic realities necessary to prevent buildings from falling into disrepair with the hardship facing too many New York families.”
Andrew Cuomo speaks throughout the Democratic mayoral major debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, U.S.Photograph Yuki Iwamura/Pool by way of REUTERS
Mayor Adams, who’s working for re-election as an Impartial, additionally seems to be in opposition to a hire freeze.
He mentioned he’s involved about homeowners, particularly those that solely personal few properties, not incomes sufficient rental revenue and letting their properties fall into misery.
“[The price of] Gas doesn’t freeze. Electricity doesn’t freeze. Insurance doesn’t freeze. The cost of running a building doesn’t freeze,” Adams mentioned in an April 28 media look.
On the opposite finish of the spectrum, Queens Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani, polling in an increasingly-closer second place, mentioned that if elected, he would freeze the hire for his total four-year time period.
If rents have been frozen from October 2026 via September 2030, tenants may collectively save $2.44 billion to $6.84 billion in hire, which might circulate again into town’s financial system, in accordance with a report by the Group Service Society, a social welfare nonprofit.
All the opposite Democratic candidates moreover Cuomo — Comptroller Brad Lander, Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, former Bronx Meeting Member Michael Blake, former Comptroller Scott Stringer and State Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos — have mentioned they assist freezing the hire for a minimum of this 12 months.
Setting rents is “one of the most consequential things that city government does” and rests completely inside the mayor’s management, because the mayor appoints the RGB decision-makers, mentioned Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc.
A hire freeze additionally doesn’t require a funds to be handed or a brand new regulation to be signed, she mentioned. This 12 months, with many renters feeling pinched by a good financial system, they’ve mobilized to place a hire freeze on the poll — and whoever is elected mayor should hear their issues, mentioned Weaver.
There are too many renters for candidates to disregard, she mentioned. “The city runs on rent-stabilized tenants.”
The RGB’s “impossible” activity
The controversy over a hire freeze illustrates the complexity of town’s reasonably priced housing panorama and the fragile steadiness between affordability and preservation that the RGB should try to strike.
In the event that they elevate rents an excessive amount of, tenants gained’t be capable to pay — and in the event that they don’t elevate rents sufficient, landlords gained’t have sufficient funds to keep up and restore their buildings.
However Mark A. Willis, senior coverage fellow on the NYU Furman Heart, believes that the RGB’s balancing act is definitely not possible in an period of inflation.
In a June 2 interview with New York News, Willis mentioned the board’s twin mandate of holding rents cheap whereas additionally guaranteeing homeowners can cowl working prices can’t be achieved beneath inflation and with the board having just one instrument — elevating rents by a restricted quantity — at its disposal.
RGB knowledge reveals that insurance coverage prices alone rose almost 18.7% this 12 months, and homeowners’ total working prices elevated 6.3% — larger than the higher restrict of the board’s potential hire hike for one-year leases.
Below the Adams administration hire will increase, homeowners’ Web Working Revenue (the rest after paying working prices) rose 12% on common between 2022 and 2023, or 8% when adjusted for inflation. However Willis mentioned many immediately are nonetheless not incomes sufficient to cowl their prices.
If there have been no inflation, it might be straightforward to impose a hire freeze, he mentioned. However in immediately’s actuality, and beneath the 2019 regulation, rent-stabilized homeowners don’t have any choices moreover what the RGB decides on their behalf.
Willis mentioned there are legitimate arguments for and in opposition to a hire freeze. Many tenants’ incomes haven’t stored up with inflation, and many homeowners don’t absorb sufficient rental revenue to keep up their buildings correctly.
Except the world had no inflation, “There’s no way the RGB can satisfy both at the same time,” mentioned Willis.
Members of the New York State Tenant Bloc rally outdoors the Lease Pointers Board assembly at LaGuardia Performing Arts Heart on April 30, demanding a hire freezePhoto by New York State Tenant Bloc
In his April 10 testimony to the Lease Pointers Board, Willis pointed to about 200,000 citywide models most vulnerable to monetary insolvency and highlighted the Bronx as a case examine.
For 100% rent-stabilized Bronx buildings constructed earlier than 1974, the RGB’s hire will increase between 2010 and 2023 didn’t sustain with working prices, falling quick by 1% annually, he testified.
Throughout that point, what homeowners spent on working prices fell by over 7% when adjusted for inflation. Their web working revenue elevated modestly, however not sufficient to totally cowl prices, which rose faster than inflation.
By 2024, it was estimated that since 2019, the hire shortfall for every unit was already as much as $1,444 per 12 months, exceeding one month’s hire.
Landlords on this state of affairs need assistance, and tenants want them to proceed offering reasonably priced properties, Willis mentioned.
“You shouldn’t not help the owners with building with such low rents because of concerns that other owners are thought to have exploited the system that existed before 2019,” he advised New York News.
He mentioned town should discover different methods to assist people who find themselves struggling to pay hire whereas additionally guaranteeing homeowners don’t fall into misery and chapter.
Expensive subsidies to fill the hole could also be needed, however the issue is long-term and requires complicated options. The underside line is that town desperately must protect the reasonably priced housing it already has, mentioned Willis. The present emptiness charge for rent-stabilized models is barely 0.98%, in accordance with the RGB.
“If you don’t make it possible for the good guys — that is, there are some landlords who want to do the right thing — to be able to properly maintain the buildings, you’re going to lose the stock,” he mentioned.
‘Death spiral’
Former Bronx Meeting Member Kenny Burgos now leads the New York Condominium Affiliation, a 501(c)(6) group representing 1000’s of householders, lots of whom have rent-stabilized buildings which have been handed down via generations, he advised New York News Metro.
Burgos’ group, by way of its Housing for All PAC, is now backing Cuomo and is the largest donor to any candidate within the mayoral race. The NYAA is looking for the RGB to “stop the bleeding” with a 6.25% hire improve on one-year leases.
In an interview with New York News, Burgos painted a stark actuality of the housing panorama, saying that the RGB and “unfunded mandates” just like the 2019 legal guidelines have led to a “systematic defunding of housing” within the metropolis.
In accordance with Burgos, the blanket hire freeze that many are advocating for would have unintended penalties and “would actually send these buildings that these tenants live in into a death spiral.”
He blasted the mayoral candidates for “pandering” to tenants.
“To me, a blanket rent freeze is probably one of the most irresponsible policy decisions that any elected official could have right now,” mentioned Burgos.
He mentioned he understands frustration over hire will increase and that many tenants are financially struggling. However the RGB has repeatedly underestimated the prices of working housing, and holding rents too low will backfire, he mentioned.
RGB hire will increase are “the only mechanism” for homeowners to maintain up with rising prices of property taxes, insurance coverage, labor prices, utility charges, he mentioned. In the event that they don’t acquire sufficient income, many will cease sustaining and repairing their buildings, and a few could lose them.
Burgos mentioned that even many lifelong New Yorkers don’t totally grasp the complicated housing setting and expense of working housing in NYC.
A hire freeze sounds good, however “really doesn’t serve the people it’s trying to serve,” he mentioned.
Lack of belief
These in favor of a hire freeze argue that homeowners are making greater than sufficient earnings to cowl elevated working prices — and are sometimes skeptical that income from previous RGB will increase is definitely getting used to enhance properties.
Fitzroy Christian, who has lived in his 50-unit, six-story Morris Heights, Bronx condo constructing since 1976, mentioned he advocates for a hire freeze on behalf of his many neighbors who wrestle to afford residing within the metropolis.
Christian mentioned though he doesn’t have a lot problem affording $1,031 in hire for his two-bedroom condo, lots of his neighbors do.
“It is not everyone in the southwest Bronx who had the fortune I had,” he mentioned in an interview with the Bronx Occasions on June 2.
Many would think about Christian’s hire shockingly low for wherever in NYC — but it surely comes at a value.
His constructing has 39 open housing code violations with town Division of Housing Preservation and Improvement (HPD), and he mentioned he skilled three partial ceiling collapses in three years, together with inconsistent warmth and scorching water and pest infestations. Everybody within the constructing has these issues, no matter their revenue, mentioned Christian.
He mentioned a hire discount would really be applicable of their case, however a freeze would a minimum of assist “ease the trauma” for people who find themselves already making sacrifices “that no human being should have to be making,” akin to skipping meals or taking partial doses of medicines to save cash, he mentioned.
Even past tenants’ means to pay, a scarcity of belief in landlords seems to be one other issue motivating some hire freeze supporters.
Yun Chen, who has lived in Chinatown for 29 years, advised New York News that she doesn’t imagine her landlord is utilizing the revenue from latest hire hikes to raised preserve the property, which was in-built 1900.
No main repairs have been made in her rent-stabilized constructing on Monroe Road since 2008, mentioned Chen, talking via a Mandarin translator.
The constructing has modified arms a number of occasions throughout her years there, and now, nobody appears to be taking motion to interchange the water pipes, which she mentioned seem very previous and leaky, leading to an unreliable scorching water provide. A neighbor as soon as had plaster bits of his ceiling fall down on account of a water leak from the ground above, Chen mentioned.
“Only surface repairs” have been performed for a few years, she mentioned. “What are the landlords paying for?”
Chen isn’t the one one calling for extra transparency.
Landlords may open up their books to show to the RGB {that a} hire improve is important, however they don’t often accomplish that, mentioned Weaver with the New York State Tenant Bloc.
A couple of homeowners really did open their books to the industrial actual property reporting outlet Bisnow and confirmed that their web revenue has fallen considerably because the 2019 regulation was handed.
Monetary data confirmed that the proprietor of 100 rent-stabilized Queens models had steadily rising revenue from 2019 to 2021, which then dropped off from a peak of $340,000 all the way down to $177,512 in 2024.
Within the Bronx, an proprietor of 80 models made near $174,000 in 2019 however dropped to $29,192 in 2024.
Reprinted with writer’s permission
However many tenants and advocacy teams aren’t shopping for it and imagine an RGB hire improve of any quantity is unwarranted.
Many landlords merely made unsound investments and need to cross the issue onto tenants, Weaver mentioned. As an alternative of upping rents, homeowners ought to search metropolis and state assist in masking prices if wanted.
“It’s not our job as tenants to cover landlords’ asses for their bad investment,” she mentioned.
Lease-stabilized buildings alongside East 138th Road within the South Bronx, the place tenants have protested years of deteriorating circumstances.Photograph Emily Swanson
Current hire freezes
The town already has two hire freeze packages: SCRIE and DRIE, the Senior Citizen Lease Enhance Exemption (ages 62 and up) and Incapacity Lease Enhance Exemption. These packages be certain that enrolled people solely pay a set quantity, even when rents of their constructing improve.
Candidates should meet standards past being a senior or disabled, together with residing in a rent-stabilized constructing, Mitchell Lama cooperative or another permitted kind of housing, and receiving revenue from federal sources akin to Social Safety or the Veterans’ Administration.
Advocates have expressed frustration that many middle-income tenants earn an excessive amount of to qualify for SCRIE and DRIE and nonetheless wrestle to pay hire. However Burgos mentioned these packages as they exist are nonetheless more practical than a blanket hire freeze.
Below SCRIE and DRIE, if the constructing proprietor will increase the hire, enrolled tenants pay the identical quantity as earlier than, and homeowners obtain a tax break to cowl what’s lacking.
Chen in Chinatown retired two years in the past and is enrolled in SCRIE, which froze her hire at $1,130 per thirty days for a two-bedroom condo. Others within the constructing are paying $1,600, she mentioned.
Burgos with the New York Condominium Affiliation mentioned these packages “actually work” as a result of they think about tenants’ means to pay whereas additionally masking homeowners’ prices. About 100,000 New Yorkers are enrolled, and much more qualify however will not be signed up, he mentioned.
Attributable to these hire freeze packages, 170,000 rent-stabilized models won’t expertise a rise, no matter how the Lease Pointers Board votes, mentioned Burgos.
He advocates for increasing these packages to permit extra folks to qualify and for bolstering enrollment efforts.
In contrast to a blanket hire freeze, which “really doesn’t serve the people it’s trying to serve,” Burgos mentioned hire freeze packages that think about tenants’ restricted revenue — whereas nonetheless masking for homeowners — are a wise possibility.
Because the RGB faces its June 27 vote and New York Metropolis voters put together to move to the polls, tenants like Christian within the Bronx and Chen in Chinatown are speaking to their neighbors and throwing their assist behind hire freeze-friendly mayoral candidates.
Constructing sturdy neighborhood bonds will assist residents put together for no matter comes subsequent, mentioned Christian. “We can only survive as a community, as a group,” he mentioned. “When one of us suffers, it is a threat to all of us.”
