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Over a half-melted peanut-butter a\u00e7ai bowl at a picnic table in the Bronx\u2019s Pelham Bay neighborhood, Kenny Burgos explains why rents for nearly a million apartments in New York need to go up. \u201cThe Bronx, to this day, has buildings that are almost 100 percent \u2014 if not 100 percent \u2014 regulated,\u201d he says, his gaze unblinking. \u201cAnd those are the buildings that are struggling the most, that have the highest violation counts.\u201d He\u2019s making the case that, as things stand with our current housing laws, keeping apartments in those buildings habitable means tenants will have to pay more. The 31-year-old former assemblyman and CEO of the New York Apartment Association \u2014 a group whose members include property owners and managers of some 500,000 rent-stabilized apartments \u2014 knows it\u2019s an unpopular opinion, especially in a city where the majority of people rent. And it\u2019s especially unpopular now, since the mayor, another former assemblyman in his 30s, was elected on a promise to freeze the rents on those very apartments. \u201cI do this work because I know I\u2019m right,\u201d Burgos says. \u201cAnd I know that we are on a path to destroy the housing people live in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgos may spend his days fighting Mayor Mamdani\u2019s housing policies, but he also likes the guy. He was two years behind him at Bronx Science, though the pair didn\u2019t meet until they were both elected to the State Assembly in 2020. Burgos, then 26, came in to represent the 85th District in the Bronx. Mamdani was 29 and represented the 36th District \u2014 Astoria and much of what has been called Queens\u2019s \u201cCommie Corridor.\u201d They quickly hit it off. \u201cWe were both these two young guys from New York City who had similar backgrounds in the sense of our taste in music and internet culture and just joking around,\u201d says Burgos, still dressed the part in green track pants, gray ASICS, and a YoungLA T-shirt. \u201cWe appreciated each other being in that body because we were trying to reshape what it meant to be an elected official.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Albany, they played basketball on Tuesdays. (\u201cI\u2019m better at basketball, 100 percent,\u201d Burgos tells me.) Back in town, they once shared a hookah on Steinway Street. While the two were regularly confused for one another in the Capitol \u2014 both are bearded and have a penchant for Carhartt jackets \u2014 \u201cwe just carved out our own political lanes,\u201d Burgos says. Now, their ideologies will go head-to-head at the annual Rent Guidelines Board meetings that kick off in March, where tenant reps, landlord groups, and housing wonks make their case for how much to allow stabilized rents to increase, if at all. The potential four-year rent freeze Mamdani promised is on the line. Burgos and his team have spent hours in their Fidi office planning the arguments they\u2019ll make to the board. \u201cI\u2019m obviously going to be painted as the heel,\u201d Burgos tells me. \u201cBut I just know, based on the data and based on the trend line, that this is not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The affordable-housing crisis is a complex blend of problems, among them rent hikes outpacing wage growth, a historically low vacancy rate, and, per the Abundance crowd, a sluggish timeline for new development. But whether it\u2019s tenants or landlords who pay too much for the rent-stabilized units that make up nearly half of all rentals remains singularly contentious. According to a recent report by NYU\u2019s Furman Center, nearly half of all the stabilized units in the five boroughs are in so-called legacy properties, which were built before 1974, and are entirely rent regulated (or close to it). These apartments are heavily concentrated in northern Manhattan and the Bronx, where Burgos grew up, and are among the cheapest in the city \u2014 with an estimated median rent of $1,400 a month in 2023 \u2014 but generally in the worst shape. Mamdani and Burgos agree on some things that could change to help distressed buildings: the city\u2019s complicated property-tax system and sky-rocketing insurance fees.<\/p>\n
But as to why rent-stabilized buildings remain in disrepair \u2014 there, the two definitely don\u2019t agree. Mamdani and his team see rampant speculation and slumlordism as the major causes and argue that only a narrow slice of buildings with at least one stabilized unit are in financial distress such that the net operating income, or rent minus operational and maintenance costs, is negative. Burgos gripes that this measurement excludes landlords\u2019 debt service on their properties. Mamdani has argued that there is a state program in place to help landlords in dire financial straits. Burgos says it doesn\u2019t help: \u201cThe \u2018hardship\u2019 program is basically a program in name only.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgos also believes a 2019 law is part of what set the city\u2019s rent-stabilized housing on course for disaster. Before the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, landlords had a relatively seamless way to increase rents and convert regulated apartments into market-rate ones. Because this was theoretically a great way to make money, particularly in newly gentrifying neighborhoods, interest in stabilized properties ballooned and landlords took on debt to acquire and maintain them, thinking their value would continue to rise. Once the law passed, however, owners were limited in their ability to raise rents and flip units and lost two of the biggest profit drivers at their disposal: an automatic 20 percent increase in rent between tenant vacancies (which encouraged harassment and evictions) and the ability to pass on large portions of the costs for apartment and building improvements to tenants as rent (which incentivized fraud). Margins slimmed substantially. \u201cIt was night and day,\u201d Burgos says, arguing that the changes exacerbated maintenance deferral, leading to horrid living conditions for tenants like a lack of heat, pest infestations, and leaks. He also sees it as part of the reason tens of thousands of units are empty. \u201cPeople try to frame me as if I want to raise rent on grandmas, as if my own grandmother-in-law doesn\u2019t live in a stabilized apartment,\u201d Burgos says. But \u201cthis is a math problem, not an emotional one.\u201d To his mind, a rent freeze will only make things worse. \u201cNone of that is good for renters. None of that is good for the City of New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgos landed his current gig in the summer of 2024 as two landlord lobbying groups were merging and needed someone in charge. The timing was ideal, Burgos says: He and his wife were about to have their first child, and those Albany commutes were rough. (Burgos owns two properties, one in Throggs Neck, where he lives with his family, and another in Soundview that he rents out, in case you\u2019re wondering.) Much like his frenemy, Burgos takes his political messaging to the public via Instagram and TikTok, trying to unspool wonky and complicated housing policy in 60-second clips. It\u2019s a testament to Burgos\u2019s personal appeal \u2014 and the overwhelming popularity of the mayor\u2019s campaign message \u2014 that this head of a lobbying group, which spent $2.5 million trying to defeat Mamdani, can sometimes come across as an underdog in the fight. \u201cRight around when Zohran was about to win the general and a couple of my videos had gone more viral on X, people were like, \u2018Temu Zohran!\u2019\u201d Burgos tells me. He\u2019s used to being called a knockoff or worse. \u201cIf it brings the eyeballs and the ears, they can call me his Wario \u2014 I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the afternoon, I walk him back to the health-food store where we got a\u00e7ai bowls so he can grab a pair of C4 energy drinks. \u201cMy body\u2019s a temple,\u201d he says, laughing, \u201cthen I drink this shit.\u201d A gym rat who dabbles in competitive bodybuilding, Burgos tells me he puts almost everything he eats at home on a food scale and can now ballpark a dish\u2019s caloric content on sight. Our melting smoothie bowls? \u201cThe whole thing, believe it or not, is easily 1,200 calories,\u201d he says. But, true to form as a facts-not-feelings guy, Burgos argues that what\u2019s good for you isn\u2019t always so cut-and-dried. \u201cDon\u2019t confuse healthy with low calorie,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the biggest misconceptions people have.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the March 23, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n