NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A raucous meeting is expected Monday night when the NYC Rent Guidelines Board votes on potential rent hikes for rent-stabilized tenants.
The nine-member board will decide on rent increase of 1.75% to 4.75% on new one-year leases and 3.75% to 7.75% on new two-year leases. The hikes would impact leases signed starting on Oct. 1.
The Rent Guidelines Board determines increases on the city’s roughly 1 million rent-regulated apartments each year. The board is made up of public members and advocates for both tenants and building owners.
The annual vote is being held at 7 p.m. at El Museo del Barrio on Fifth Avenue in East Harlem.
Landlords are pushing for the maximum increases, saying the cost of maintaining buildings has exploded, citing utility increases and property tax hikes.
Tenants and their advocates say there should be a rent freeze because the cost of living is out of control, forcing them to decide between housing and food.
Ritti Singh, a spokesperson for the group Housing Justice for All, said landlords don’t need any increase.
“The Rent Guidelines Board’s own data shows that landlord incomes are up 12%,” Singh said. “That’s the biggest spike in landlord incomes since the 1990s. And that’s after landlord incomes were up already 10% last year.”
Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who is the expected Democratic candidate for mayor, has vowed to freeze the rent if he's elected, as the mayor appoints members to the Rent Guidelines Board.
Mayor Eric Adams has taken the middle road on the matter, saying he doesn’t support a rent freeze but also thinks the costlier increases are an “unreasonable” burden on tenants.
"New Yorkers simply cannot bear these costs," Adams said in a statement in April, when the board proposed the hikes.