We are about to find out if New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise to freeze the rent on the 2.4 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments will come to pass. This huge decision will be made on Thursday night by the Rent Guidelines Board, which, despite its boring name, actually provides some of the most raucous theater in town. Members of the public have been warned to leave their drums and noisemakers at home.
Other major cities in America with rent controls tend to use simple formulas to determine how much rents can go up each year. Los Angeles allows rent hikes equal to 90 percent of the increase in the local Consumer Price Index (CPI), with a minimum of 1 percent and a maximum of 4 percent. San Francisco’s math is even cleaner: 60 percent of the local CPI increase.
The greatest city on Earth does things differently. Each year, the Rent Guidelines Board is tasked by law to analyze the economic state of the city and its housing stock to arrive at a “rent adjustment” for one- and two-year leases. It does so over the course of 11 open meetings, including four where members of the public can provide testimony.
I am a landlord whose properties are majority rent-stabilized, but I have never really wanted to participate in these hearings. Owners who complain about expenses that outstrip what they are allowed to charge in rent are invariably drowned out by tenants and activists who shout, stomp their feet, wave placards, and blow whistles to disrupt the proceedings, despite the rules. It is a circus, and it has been for a long time.
