The mayor of New York, , has managed to carry out one of the star promises with which he came to office. The city’s Rental Regulation Board approved this Thursday the freezing of rents for almost a million rent-stabilized homesa measure that will affect about 40% of the apartments in the five New York boroughs.
The decision means that regulated rental contracts, both one and two years, will not be able to experience price increases, a relief for around 2.4 million people who live in this type of housing in one of the cities with the most expensive real estate market in the world. “This is a historic victory for the tenants of the city of “Mamdani celebrated in a statement after the vote.
The mayor assured that he will continue working to make the city more affordable by building new homes, preserving the protected rental stock and reducing the costs borne by buildings, such as insurance, in addition to reinforcing information on tenants’ rights.
A pillar of your campaign
The freezing of rents was one of the pillars of Mamdani’s electoral campaign, who made the housing crisis one of his top political priorities.
Along these lines, the mayor already presented last May an ambitious plan to build 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve another 200,000 over the next decade, a project backed by a municipal investment of 22 billion dollars, the largest for housing in many years in New York.
The approval of the measure comes after months of public hearingscitizen consultations and an intense debate between representatives of tenants and owners.
The latter had expressed concern about the economic impact of freezing rents, although a report prepared by the regulatory board itself concluded that the income of owners of stabilized homes has increased in recent years.
The decision consolidates the shift in housing policy promoted by Mamdani, who made affordability one of the axes of his mandate and who now manages to materialize his first major reform just a few months after becoming mayor.
