December 1, 2025
Don't just freeze rent on rent-stabilized apartments. Do not under any circumstances allow them to be demolished.
Dear Mayor Mamdani,
Congratulations on your victory. Many New Yorkers are counting on you to accelerate the development of affordable housing. But what about saving existing rent-stabilized apartments that are being torn down to make way for luxury housing from demolition? This is a little recognized trend. Now you have the opportunity to stop this serious and permanent loss.
Citywide group, Campaign for a Livable City(I'm a member) tried to draw attention to this. The campaign includes affordable housing advocates, community organizers, park preservationists, and historic preservationists. City Council members Gail Brewer (Upper West Side), Christopher March (Lower East Side) and Sandy Nurse (Brooklyn) also recognize this and plan to counter it. Plans are in the works to introduce a bill to the City Council that would require developers to replace on site the same number of affordable housing units they demolish. But it may take time to get through the Council.
Instead, as mayor-elect, you could make an immediate impact. Don't just freeze rent on rent-stabilized apartments; do not allow them to be demolished at all. Require new apartment towers to contain the same number of affordable apartments on site that are demolished to make way for them. Demand that rents be comparable. This will at least stop the loss of existing affordable housing while you make every effort to build new affordable housing.
This hidden loss is happening throughout the city, but it is not recognized. This has already happened on 4th Avenue in Brooklyn over the past decade. No one really noticed because no one was tracking the loss. Only one group, viz. FRIENDS Historic Upper East Side neighborhoods in Yorkville, Upper Manhattan. tracking this trend since 2007 and is trying to publicize the most egregious losses. Historically, Yorkville was once the first home to the city for many immigrants. It is now home to a large ethnic diversity of working families and young people pursuing careers. For many of them, these one-time apartment buildings, often rent-stabilized, are their last chance to afford to stay in New York. They are kicked out.
The most egregious examples exist in Yorkville. This Upper East Side neighborhood has such a high concentration of these former apartment buildings because of its history as a haven for immigrants…
Current number
For example:
At Third Avenue and East 75th Street, 43 affordable apartments and four ground-floor commercial apartments are being replaced with 38 luxury apartments in a new luxury building of unknown height, with no ground-floor commercial space.
At 1045 Madison Avenue, 14 luxury apartments replaced four-row buildings with 13 affordable apartments and 9 commercial tenants. The lost commercial space was occupied by small local businesses.
At 355 East 86th Street, an intact, pristine row of four-story red brick, modernized apartment buildings with street-level retail has been demolished for a 23-story luxury high-rise with an unknown number of luxury apartments, none of which are affordable.
On the Upper West Side, 15 West 96th Street, a 321-foot tower with 21 pricey apartments, replaced three 5-story townhouses with 30 rental units.
The residents of these lost apartments are the same people the city is losing to the suburbs or New Jersey. They have no choice.
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Yorkville is just an example of this phenomenon. 2020 Affordable Housing Loss Study by George M. Janes and Associates just rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan from 2007 to 2020 shows a net loss of 14,438 rent-stabilized apartments on the Upper East Side and 11,127 rent-stabilized apartments on the Upper West Side, the two highest among the community board districts studied. But every Manhattan neighborhood posted a loss, with a total net loss of 37,466 units. Research has not yet been carried out in other areas. Recent Midtown South the rezoning opens additional floodgates to this trend. The area is filled with outstanding old apartment buildings filled with stabilized apartments on sites that are now reserved for new luxury towers.
There is another tragic loss in economic and social terms. Small local businesssome of which have been run by families for generations are also being hit. They are replaced, at least always, by a national chain, rather than by local businesses on which area residents depend and which directly benefit the city's economy rather than the national one.
Developers argue that rent-stabilized buildings are not financially sustainable. But they have all sorts of tax breaks and always seem to find a buyer. You know how many rent increases they've gotten over the years. They say it's never enough.
How will building luxury apartments for multimillionaires anywhere in the city help solve New York's affordable housing crisis? This is wrong. “Trickle-down” has NEVER worked.
On top of all this, the government-funded lawyers that foreclosed tenants desperately need severely underfunded around the city. The budget for them has been drastically cut under the current administration.
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