With less than two weeks left on the clock, Mayor Eric Adams is handing the keys to the city’s rent rules to people unlikely to freeze them.
He just added two new members and re-appointed two others to the nine-person Rent Guidelines Board, the body that decides each spring how much landlords can raise the one million stabilized apartments across New York.
The four fresh faces—two finance experts, a legal-aid lawyer, and a real-estate attorney—have never publicly backed a rent freeze, and Adams praised them as “responsible stewards” who will use “facts and data” for both tenants and owners.
The move looks like a last-minute wall built to block Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise of a four-year halt to rent hikes.
Mamdani won office shouting that renters need immediate relief after four years of increases that added up to twelve percent under Adams.
He says the city can afford the freeze because landlord profits are up and many buildings sit in sound financial shape.
Tenant groups cheered the pledge, gathering thousands of signatures and vowing to pack every public hearing until the board votes zero.
Now they fear Adams’s appointees will lock in another increase before the new mayor can even pick up his pen.
Firing the newcomers would be legally risky.
City law lets a mayor remove board members “for cause,” but no mayor has ever tried it, and any attempt would land in court within days.
Mamdani’s team says they are ready to test that power, or find other levers—budget lines, public pressure, even new state legislation—to deliver the freeze.
“We are just as committed today as we were on the campaign trail,” the mayor-elect said in a statement, warning landlords that “last-minute appointments do not change the facts.”
Landlords, meanwhile, say the facts show buildings bleeding cash.
Kenny Burgos, head of the New York Apartment Association, points to city data saying tens of thousands of stabilized properties can’t pay for new boilers or roof repairs without modest rent bumps.
He wants modest vacancy increases and tax breaks so owners can keep up maintenance, arguing that a hard freeze will only speed decay and abandonment.
The two sides will collide next spring when the board must set rates for leases starting after October 2026, and every percentage point will echo in household budgets across the five boroughs.
For now, the nine-member panel leans older, whiter, and more pro-industry than the incoming mayor hoped.
Tenant organizers are already planning rallies, phone banks, and a Valentine’s Day march on City Hall to remind the newcomers who won the last election.
Landlords are hiring lobbyists and drafting op-eds warning of boarded-up walk-ups if rents stay flat.
Between the outgoing mayor’s parting gift and the incoming mayor’s central promise, New York’s longest running fight—who pays, how much, and who decides—has only grown louder.
