State Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani committed to freezing rents for millions of New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments at a Mayoral Forum on Housing on Saturday.
Ramos and Mamdani, the two Queens-based candidates in the 2025 mayoral race, joined fellow candidates, including former Assembly Member Michael Blake, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer and lawyer Jim Walden at the Mayoral Forum on Housing at Fordham University School of Law on Saturday afternoon.
Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is also seeking re-election, did not appear at the forum.
The forum, hosted by Housing Justice for All, Housing Conservation Coordinators, and the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, was moderated by Politico New York reporter Jeff Coltin and featured questions on issues such as homelessness, housing affordability, and the right to counsel.
However, rent freezes were high on the agenda at Saturday’s forum, with many attendees holding signs calling on candidates to commit to a rent freeze or risk losing votes. Coltin also kicked off the forum by asking each of the seven candidates if they would support rent freezes.
Only Ramos, Mamdani and Blake explicitly committed to a rent freeze on Saturday, with each of the four other candidates pledging to fight for renters without explicitly committing to a rent freeze. Walden also committed to freezing the rent for landlords who refuse to open their books and publicly show their operating costs and incomes.
It is no surprise that Mamdani emphatically endorsed a rent freeze at Saturday’s forum. The Assembly Member, who represents part of Ditmars and Astoria, became the first of the mayoral candidates to commit to a rent freeze back in October.
Mamdani noted that the incoming mayor will have exclusive authority to appoint eight members to the nine-seat Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), noting that eight terms have expired and “could be replaced tomorrow”.
The RGB votes every year whether or not to increase rents for the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments and has approved increases in each of the last three years under the Adams administration, raising rents by 3.25% for one-year leases in 2022 followed by a 3% increase in 2023 and a 2.75% increase in 2024.
Rent-stabilized apartments are located in buildings constructed before 1973 featuring six or more apartments or in newer buildings built using tax breaks. Tenants living in rent-stabilized apartments pay a median rent of $1,500 per month, compared to $2,000 for an unregulated apartment, according to a 2024 city survey. However, tenants in a rent-stabilized apartment earn a median income of $60,000 per year compared to the city-wide median income of $76,577 recorded in the 2023 Census.
Mamdani pledged to appoint RGB members who “vote in line with reality” and said former Mayor Bill de Blasio set a precedent by implementing a rent freeze on three separate occasions.
Mamdani said New York renters, especially those in rent-stabilized apartments, have an area median income under that of New York City.
He pointed to RGB data from March 2024 highlighting that landlords who own at least one rent-stabilized unit have seen their income increase by 10% while their expenses have risen by only 6%. Mamdani accused landlords of claiming to need to raise their rents in order to cover their operating costs.
“They are making more than the expenses they are facing. What we need is someone to stand up for tenants, and those tenants need to be rent-stabilized tenants first and foremost,” Mamdani said at Saturday’s forum.
Asked if he was worried that his pledges to introduce rent freezes would invite litigation from landlords, Mamdani said landlords are often receiving rent that far outstrips their operating costs and said any landlord that feels they cannot make up their costs through rent can apply for relief from the city through a program within city government. He commented that just one landlord has taken advantage of the program.
“The reason the number is so low is that it’s much easier to cry bankruptcy when you don’t have to open your books,” Mamdani said.
Also committing to a rent freeze, Ramos said she has been a rent-stabilized tenant for 13 years and said her apartment allowed her to leave an unhealthy relationship. She pointed to her time as an aide to de Blasio when rents were frozen on three separate occasions.
“I am also proud to have been part of the administration that delivered on rent freezes for many years. I am ready to win a rent freeze again,” Ramos said at Saturday’s forum.
Ramos remarked that one of the core tenants of her mayoral campaign is property tax reform, stating that such reform could lower costs for landlords.
“The housing debate has pit homeowners and tenants against each other, when really we’re all struggling with an inequitable property tax system,” Ramos said in a follow-up post on X, formerly Twitter. “You have to deal with that to deal with the housing crisis.”
Ramos also touted reform to property value assessments, stating that current regulations penalize renovated buildings. Without reforming such assessments, Ramos said, the city will never be able to incentivize landlords to put more apartments back on the market.
Cea Weaver, director of the Housing Justice for All Coalition, welcomed Mamdani, Blake, and Ramos’s endorsement of a rent freeze and said candidates know they cannot win a mayoral campaign without the support of tenants.
“Tenants are the backbone of New York – the nurses, bus drivers, cooks, and cleaners that make New York into the city we love,” Weaver said in a statement. “We deserve to afford to live in the city we keep running. We need a leader who will fight for us instead of catering to the real estate donors, making this city less affordable every day. Delivering a rent freeze is the clearest thing that the Mayor of New York City can do to keep us in our home.”
Adams, meanwhile, has consistently supported the RGB’s rent increases during his time in office, stating that small property owners need to raise rent in order to cover their expenses.
Landlord groups have said that rent freezes will disincentivize landlords from putting properties on the market and have said that rent increases are necessary to keep up with rising costs.
