For the fourth year in a row, the Eric Adams-appointed Rent Guidelines Board plans to raise the rent of tenants living in rent-stabilized housing. On Wednesday night, the board approved, in a 5-4 vote, the range of rent increases they plan on considering this year—1.75 percent to 4.75 percent for one-year leases and 4.75 percent to 7.75 percent for two-year leases. The actual increase won't be finalized until another vote by the board later this summer.
Mayor Adams released a statement with the same cursory gestures of support for tenants that he's made since 2022, despite having his RGB approve rent increases every year he's been in office. "I must be clear that an increase as much as 7.75 percent is far too unreasonable of a burden for tenants, especially as our entire city is feeling the squeeze of a 1.4 percent housing vacancy rate and a decades-long affordability crisis. New Yorkers simply cannot bear these costs," he wrote.
Meanwhile, tenant organizers say they're looking beyond Adams and this year's (likely) hikes and toward the possibility of electing a new mayor who puts renters first. "We're going to win this the way we always do: by organizing tenants, packing every hearing, and making sure City Hall can't ignore us! Last night's preliminary vote is just the beginning," Joanna Grell, a rent-stabilized tenant in the Bronx and cochair of Housing Justice for All's Freeze the Rent campaign, told Hell Gate in a statement. "We'll be organizing from now until the final vote in June, and all the way to the ballot box!"