As the longest-serving member of the City's Rent Guidelines Board and the only member appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, I voted for a rent freeze in 2020, during the early months of the COVID pandemic. I was also the author of RGB's subsequent order to freeze rents for another six months.
I agree with Zoran Mamdani that the affordable housing crisis in New York City requires immediate attention. However, I disagree with Mamdani's promise to freeze the rents of all rent-stabilized housing for four years. Arguments in support of a multi-year rent freeze are flawed, and the effects of such a freeze would threaten the physical and financial viability of thousands of rent-stabilized buildings, many of which were built or preserved with taxpayer dollars.
The Misleading Argument for a Rent Freeze
Mamdani and many other rent freeze proponents highlight that RGB under Mayor Adams authorized higher increases than under the previous de Blasio administration. They highlight the fact that while annual rents rose a cumulative 12.5% over four years under Adams, they rose only 5.5% during the eight years of the de Blasio administration, during which RGB imposed rent freezes three times (in 2016, 2017 and 2020).
These statements are true, but they are also misleading. First, they overlook the fact that until 2019, when Albany passed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), landlords could raise rents outside of annual RGB adjustments.
Before this law was passed, they could raise rents by 18-20% per vacancy, and also raise rents by a percentage of the cost of capital improvements (MCI) (e.g., new roofs, boilers) and individual apartment improvements (IAI) (e.g., renovated bathrooms and kitchens).
Indeed, many landlords have relied on increased vacancy rates, major renovations, and improvements to individual apartments to force what is known as “luxury deregulation.” This means that once rents reach a certain threshold (in 2019 it was $2,775), landlords could remove the apartment from rent stabilization and charge whatever the market would bear. Between 1994 and 2020, more than 170,000 housing units were deregulated in this way, most of them in Manhattan.
HSTPA changed all that. It eliminated deregulation (with very few exceptions), prohibited increased vacancy rates, and significantly reduced the maximum rent increases allowed for MCI and IAI. Beginning in 2019, the only way for landlords to increase rents for rent-stabilized apartments, other than significantly reduced MCIs and IAPs, was to apply the maximum allowable increase authorized by the RGB.
That's not all. During the de Blasio years, inflation was extremely low, averaging just 1.6%. This was not the case under Adams. From January 2022 to September 2025, the New York City region's consumer price index increased by an average of 4.2% per year. As a result, RGB's inflation-adjusted rent increases under the Adams administration amounted to lower than under de Blasio. In fact, they were often negative, effectively driving down rents.
RGB staff calculates a “comprehensive” rent adjustment for each year, combining one- and two-year increases (about half of all rent-stabilized tenants choose two-year leases), and vacancy rates are increasing through 2019. This composite measure, adjusted for inflation, averaged -0.96% during the first three years of the Adams administration (the final rent adjustment only went into effect last month, and we don't know what the inflation rate will be).
By comparison, during de Blasio's eight years in office, aggregate rent adjustments declined by an average of -0.22% (pre-COVID and the concurrent spike in inflation, the average increased by 0.72%). Overall, the RGB in the Adams and de Blasio administrations authorized very small, often negative, inflation-adjusted rent increases.
Rent increases in New York are also consistently lower than in other rent-regulated cities and states. Los Angeles, for example, recently amended its rent rules to allow annual increases ranging from 1% to 4%. However, the law allows landlords to reset rents to market levels after each vacancy. Oregon sets annual rent increases at 6% for buildings with more than 30 units and at the lesser of 10% or 7% plus the consumer price index for smaller buildings.
Consequences of a rent freeze
Without adequate rental income, landlords struggle to cover the costs of maintaining and operating their buildings, as well as pay mortgage payments. Rent freezes, especially the multi-year freeze Mamdani is proposing, would put tens of thousands of rent-stabilized buildings under physical and financial threat.
A rent freeze will not stop the rising costs of insurance, repairs, utilities and other essentials. Already, More than 9% of all rent-stabilized buildings, 1,563 in total, are in disrepairat the same time, operating costs exceed income. And that's not counting the hundreds of others whose incomes don't match their combined operating costs and mortgage obligations. More buildings are on the verge of bankruptcy.
The buildings most at risk were built before 1974 and at least 80% of the units are rent stabilized. They are mainly located in poor areas of the Bronx, Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn. Unlike their partially regulated counterparts in central Manhattan and wealthier areas of Brooklyn, the owners of these buildings will not be able to offset the effects of the rent freeze by charging higher rents for their unregulated apartments.
The rent freeze would also hurt thousands of buildings that were built or preserved with city subsidies. New York City has invested more than $35 billion, adjusted for inflation, since the late 1980s in more than 640,000 housing units, primarily for low- and moderate-income households. About 290,000 rental apartments in New York City currently receive city subsidies. Much of this housing is subject to rent stabilization; indeed, it makes up more than 25% of all rent-stabilized housing.
Many of these properties are already in dire financial condition. IN readings in RGB and in various reportsAffordable housing groups have documented the deteriorating financial health of city-subsidized housing. It is being squeezed by rapidly rising costs and declining incomes.
Since COVID, costs have consistently exceeded 3% or 4% the annual increase the city typically requires to budget for subsidized housing. Average property insurance premiumsfor example, over the past two years it has increased by more than 40%. At the same time, rental income failed to increase at the budgeted rate of 2% or 3%, and often declined due to growing rent arrears and other factors.
Recent study published by the Housing and Neighborhood Development Association, a coalition of more than 80 nonprofit housing groups, found that of the 112,000 city-subsidized housing units they could match to Treasury Department reports, more than half were in the red, with expenses exceeding revenue. A prolonged rent freeze will only worsen the crisis and undermine New York's four decades of investment in affordable housing.
Arguments for rent subsidies
Mamdani is rightly aware of the housing affordability crisis in the city. Almost half of all renters spend more than 30% of their income or more on housing a quarter spend more than 50%. When people are rent-burdened, they struggle to afford food, clothing, health care, transportation, and other necessities, and too often end up homeless.
But a rent freeze will do little to improve housing affordability for rent-burdened tenants. Instead, the city could expand its already extensive rent subsidy program (CityCHP) to allow more low-income renters to afford rent-stabilized homes. The city could also expand existing Rent freeze programs for seniors and people with disabilities include other low-income tenants. These programs currently freeze rents for rent-stabilized seniors and people with disabilities with incomes under $50,000 who spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
The city is cutting property taxes for owners of these apartments to make up for lost rent increases. Better yet, the city could redesign these programs so that participants spend no more than 30% of their income on rent. These solutions will be costly, but unlike rent freezes, they will actually solve the city's housing affordability crisis and help preserve the physical and financial health of its rent-stabilized housing.
There have been times when a rent freeze was justified, but this is not one of them. Freezing rents now, especially for several years in a row, will harm tenants and their homes.
Schwartz is the longest serving member of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board and a professor of public and urban policy at The New School.
