New York votes to freeze rents for some homes in win for Mamdani

NEW YORK: New York, which has some of the priciest rents in America, voted to freeze rents for some properties subject to rent stabilisation by the city, media reported Thursday in a win for leftist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Nearly a million properties in the Big Apple subject to so-called “rent stabilization” will not see their rents hiked, delivering on a campaign promise made by Mamdani, who identifies as a Democratic socialist.

A preliminary vote in May by the rent guidelines panel had endorsed Mamdani’s plan to effectively freeze rents on nearly one million New York apartments.

The freeze was approved after a meeting that was attended by a strong showing of tenant groups, the New York Post reported.

Ahead of the vote, a member of the rent guidelines board representing landlords’ interests resigned, claiming it had “stopped being a fact-finding body” and was seeking “to deliver a rent freeze” at all costs.

Housing rental costs, including market-rate rents, continue to drift higher. In April, the median rent of a Manhattan apartment topped US$5,000 a month for the first time as the vacancy rate slipped to a six-year low of 1.55%.

The rising cost-of-living has emerged as a potent political issue in New York and elsewhere, fuelling last November’s election of Mamdani.