The New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted on Monday night to increase rates for rent-stabilized apartments.

By a 5-4 count, board members arrived at a 4.5% increase for two-year-leases and a 3% hike for one-year leases, after considering raising rents between 3.75% and 7.75%, and 1.75% and 4.75%, respectively.

The board’s decision will take effect for leases between Oct. 1 of this year and Sept. 30, 2026.

Tenants vs. landlords

Earlier this spring, the Rent Guidelines Board held a preliminary vote where it agreed to the range of rent increases, only to later agree to consider lower-range increases for two-year leases.

Tenants in rent-stabilized apartments rallied Monday ahead of the crucial vote, calling on the board to adopt the smallest increases.

Landlords said they shouldn’t have to eat the cost of rising costs for maintenance, insurances and taxes, but tenants told CBS News New York neither should they.

“Operating expenses are rising. Rents have to rise to meet those increased expenses, or else you’re defunding the buildings and defunded buildings lead to distressed buildings, which leads to a reduction in the quality of housing,” said Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of NY.

“I’ve been in my building for 16 years. What happened to the money that they got from me for my rent? What happened to the money? What did they do? Did they [go] on vacation? Did they buy another building?” wondered Mercedes Escoto.

Rent hike or freeze a key issue in NYC mayor’s race

The mayor appoints the nine-member board, and the question of a rent increase had become a major issue in the mayoral race. 

Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani declared victory in the Democratic primary last week on promises to freeze the rent for the entirety of his term. Mamdani’s success is expected to made official Tuesday, when the Board of Elections will release its ranked choice voting result, which is expected to show him crossing 50%, and therefore winning.

Mayor Eric Adams, who is seeking re-election but is running as an independent this time, has often sympathized with the plight of landlords, but made it clear in a lengthy statement following the vote he is not happy with the Rent Guidelines Board’s decision.

“For the last three-and-a-half years, our administration has worked every day to make our city more affordable for working-class New Yorkers — lowering the cost of childcare to less than $5 per week for low-income families; winning the power to eliminate city personal income taxes for over half-a-million low-income New Yorkers and put $63 million back in their pockets; providing free high-speed internet to NYCHA residents; cutting the cost of riding the subway and buses in half for low-income New Yorkers; and putting up to 500,000 New Yorkers on the path to have more than $2 billion in medical debt cancelled. This is real work that has delivered real results and made New York City more affordable,” the mayor said.

“Another massive cost for New Yorkers each month is rent, and the city’s historically low rental vacancy has millions of us feeling the squeeze, which is why, earlier today, I urged the Rent Guidelines Board to adopt the lowest increase possible, as I’ve done in the past. 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.

“While our administration is always fighting to make this city more affordable, what we will never do is sell New Yorkers on an idea that would ultimately leave them in worsening housing conditions. Rent may be on the rise, but so are deteriorating housing conditions — including inadequate heat and heating breakdowns, mice and rat problems, mold, and leaks — especially for New Yorkers in rent-stabilized housing. Demands to ‘freeze the rent’ would exacerbate these harmful health and safety issues inside the homes of more than 1 million New Yorkers by depriving owners of the resources needed to make repairs — a cruel and dangerous proposal. While freezing the rent may sound like a catchy slogan, it is bad policy, short-sighted, and only puts tenants in harm’s way. As the mayor of this city, I will never choose a politically advantageous position over what I know in my heart to be best for New Yorkers.

“We know that the city’s housing crisis cannot be solved by the Rent Guidelines Board alone. Doing so will require preserving our existing housing stock and building an abundance of new housing across our city, which our administration continues to do at record levels. We’ve created an unprecedented number of new affordable homes in back-to-back years, pushed Albany to help spur the development of new affordable housing, and passed the most pro-housing citywide zoning reform in the city’s history through the ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ — but we’re not stopping there. If our five neighborhood rezonings are approved, we will open the door to more than 130,000 homes to be built in New York City over the next 15 years — more than the 20 years of the last two mayoral administrations combined. Simply put, our administration is the most pro-housing administration in New York City’s history, and we continue to prove it every single day.”  

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