NYC landlords sue city board over Mamdani's rent freeze

(The Center Square) — A group of New York City landlords filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the city's rent control board, claiming its decision to freeze rents was a "sham" because the board was packed with Mayor Zohran Mamdani's appointees.

In the lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court on Staten Island, lawyers for the landlords claim that Mamdani "went to extraordinary lengths" to pack the nine-member New York City Rent Guidelines Board "with loyalists and then spent millions in City funds to fill the board’s hearings with tenant advocates.

Mamdani also had City Hall representatives give the board a special briefing on the “true cost of living” in New York City, the suit alleges, "compromising its independence and leaving no doubt what he expected of his hand-picked board supermajority."

"To do the mayor’s bidding, this Board then made a mockery of its statutory mandate, resorting to multiple manipulations of its own data to try to justify this irrational result," they wrote in the 122-page complaint. "And this all comes amid unchecked inflation and rising costs that struggling landlords will have to bear to survive."

Among the lawyers representing the landlords is Randy Mastro, former mayor Eric Adams' chief of staff, who has continued criticism of the new mayor since he took office.

"As thousands of property owners continue to struggle with skyrocketing costs, this irrational and illegal decision by the Rent Guidelines Board cannot stand," Mastro said in a statement.

In June, the rent board voted 7-1 to set a two-year rent freeze for one-year and two-year leases or subsidized housing. The move, which goes into effect Oct. 1, affects more than 1 million tenants in taxpayer-subsidized apartments across the city. One board member resigned in protest over the rent freeze.

But freezing rents was a key campaign pledge for Mamdani, a democratic socialist who made New York City's high housing costs and deteriorating conditions in rent-subsidized apartments a key plank of his mayoral bid.

Shortly after taking office in January, Mamdani appointed five new members to the rent control board in a sweep aimed at packing it with supporters of his rent freeze plan.

“That Mayor Mamdani preordained this outcome and then took affirmative steps to stack the deck is now undeniable,” landlords wrote in Wednesday's lawsuit.

The city's half-century-old rent stabilization law restricts annual rent increases for specific apartments, with any increases set annually by the rent board. It affects roughly 1 million apartments in the city and has survived dozens of legal challenges over the past several decades.

Critics have described the city's rent control system as "welfare for the rich" but supporters say it's a crucial safety net in a city with some of the highest rents in the nation and a lack of affordable housing.