Tenants rallied at Joan of Arc Park ahead of the Rent Guidelines Board’s final public hearing at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side before the board votes on whether to freeze or raise the rent.

Tenants are hoping for a rent freeze. 

What You Need To Know

  • Tenants rallied at Joan of Arc Park ahead of the Rent Guidelines Board’s final public hearing

  • Tenants said they hope for a rent freeze, while property owners argued they’re concerned about upkeeping older buildings

  • Six of the nine members of the board were appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on the promise of a rent freeze

“We’re way overdue for a rent freeze,” said Vajra Kilgour, who lives in Morningside Heights. “We don’t have a system for providing decent, affordable housing for people. We have a system for making rich people much richer at the expense of poor people.”

Some are concerned that a rent increase would force them to leave their neighborhoods. Christina Maria Lopez has lived in the same building her entire life.

“The rent going up likely means that I’d be displaced from the neighborhood that I was born and raised in, and it would limit the amount of good that I’m able to do in the world as a nonprofit worker,” she told NY1.

In a preliminary vote last month, the board voted for an increase of 0 to 2% on one-year leases and 0 to 4% on two-year leases signed on or after Oct. 1.

Property owners are concerned about the possibility of a rent freeze.

“They’re not living in fiscal reality. Everything that we need to purchase goes up with inflation, labor costs, you know, all these macroeconomic forces impact housing as well,” Ann Korchak, the board president of Small Property Owners of New York, told NY1. “Housing that’s 100+ years old takes a tremendous amount of income to upkeep. It is a business, too. So there is a profit portion of running these buildings too, and that should not be not permitted.”

According to the 2026 Rent Guidelines Board price index, the total cost of maintaining a building has gone up by 5.3%.

Joyce Holland, who manages three buildings, said a rent freeze would have a negative impact on the community.

“It would affect every aspect of operating the business,” Holland told NY1. “There are vendors. We’re talking about small hardware stores, all of these stores around here. They rely on the buildings to buy their materials.”

Holland said she knows owners who are working two or three jobs just to meet their bottom line.

“If you stop putting in funds for something that is over 126 years old, which most of the buildings in New York are, they’re going to collapse, literally,” she said.

Property owners and tenants alike are both struggling with increasing costs.

Six of the nine members of the board were appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on the promise of a rent freeze. There are 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.

The final decision will be made on June 25.