New York City's Rent Guidelines Board approved an NYC rent freeze on one-year and two-year leases Thursday night, covering 1 million rent-regulated apartments. The 7-1 vote came after Christina Smyth resigned Thursday morning and before Zohran Mamdani called it a historic victory for New York City tenants.
Lex Rountree stood inside El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem after the vote and said, "This is no longer just a city that's a playground for the rich," followed by, "This is a city for the working people making it run and we are making it run for us and I am so overjoyed and we are finally here after so much fighting, after years of struggling to figure out how we're going to make ends meet."
New York's Rent Guidelines Board
The vote was the first time the board had ever approved a freeze for two-year leases. It had frozen one-year leases only three times before Thursday, making this the board's broadest freeze in its history.
Zohran Mamdani said, "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. This is the relief that working people across our city deserve."
He also said Thursday before the vote, "I look forward to the outcome, the decision that they will make," and, "It's an independent Board, and we trust them to make the decision they come to." He had appointed half a dozen members of the nine-member board.
Tenant Bloc and REBNY
K Agbebiyi said, "For years landlords have run this city, and this is a new era of tenant power," and added, "We have a rent freeze mayor." After the vote, Agbebiyi said, "Hundreds of people came out and testified, thousands online," and, "Landlords' days are over; tenants are in power now and it feels amazing."
James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said the Rent Guidelines Board ignored its own data and made a terrible decision. He said, "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."
Kenny Burgos said the freeze will "destroy the living conditions for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers." Christina Smyth said in her resignation letter Thursday morning, "The Rent Guidelines Board has stopped being a fact finding body," and, "This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze."
El Museo del Barrio
The board met at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, where the vote ended a process that brought testimony from hundreds of people and thousands online. For tenants in the city's rent-regulated apartments, the immediate change is a freeze on the two lease lengths that shape most renewals in the system.
The unresolved issue is when the freeze will take effect for lease renewals, a detail the vote itself did not set out. Until that timing is announced, the practical question for tenants is not the size of the change but the first renewal date that will carry it.
