Whose rent board is it anyway? The board where everything’s made up and the numbers don’t matter.
These are perennial complaints about the city’s Rent Guidelines Board — that the mayor has inordinate influence over the board’s decisions and that the board discards its own math.
Both criticisms made an appearance during the second city-sponsored Democratic mayoral debate on Thursday night.
Candidates were asked to raise their hands if they would support a rent freeze this year. The topic has persisted in the lead up to the Democratic primary, with Assembly member Zohran Mamdani pledging to freeze the rent for four years, and most of the other Democratic candidates supporting a freeze this year. Unsurprisingly, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson were the only candidates not to raise their hands.
The question, however, caused some confusion, and Cuomo asked for clarification. At this, Mamdani chimed in, implying Cuomo wouldn’t freeze the rent because his super PAC is receiving millions of dollars from landlord groups. Cuomo said he would leave the decision up to the rent board.
“Who controls them?” Mamdani asked. “The mayor.”
“We appoint them, the law controls them. You should read it once in a while,” Cuomo responded.
“The law didn’t control you, did it?”
“You should read it.”
The board is charged with deciding one- and two-year rent increases on stabilized apartments. A mayor cannot outright order a rent freeze, but appoints the board’s members. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio publicly called for rent freezes, to the chagrin of landlords, and the board did so three times during his tenure.
The former mayor, who spent the evening live-tweeting the debate, confirmed a mayor’s ability to steer the board’s actions.
“OMG what a cop out by @andrewcuomo on a rent freeze! As if a Mayor doesn’t have a majority on the Rent Guidelines Board…I guess he doesn’t understand how NYC government works…” de Blasio wrote on X.
Mayoral candidates also came tantalizingly close to explaining how the Rent Guidelines Board calculates annual rent increases on stabilized apartments. One of the debate’s moderators, WNYC host Brian Lehrer, asked a question from a listener: Would candidates consider changing how the board determines increases, by basing them on landlord profits?
Comptroller Brad Lander pointed out that revenue is already considered. Cuomo agreed. The board uses three different formulas that consider costs, revenues and inflation to different degrees to establish potential ranges for the rent increases. Property owners have criticized these formulas for excluding smaller buildings and certain costs.
Candidates rehashed their respective housing plans. Sen. Zellnor Myrie mentioned his plan to build one million homes in 10 years, acknowledging that it is a challenging goal but one that the city can’t “keep nibbling around the edges.”
Speaker Adrienne Adams took credit for the passage of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, emphasizing that while her opponents have plans, “I’m already doing the work, I’m already there.” Lander plugged the Gowanus rezoning and his plan to build housing on four of the city’s golf courses. Former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson said he would “unleash the private sector.” Former Comptroller Scott Stringer pushed for building on vacant city-owned land and building a new generation of Mitchell-Lama housing.
In both the first and second debates, Cuomo targeted the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. During the first, he said the next mayoral administration needs to “blow up” the agency.
“We’re going to need a different model. The city, HPD, does not work to create this volume. The state housing program does not work to create this volume,” he said on Thursday. He didn’t specify what model, but has previously expressed support for a workforce-housing model championed by the Adams administration and building trades.
He pointed to office-to-residential conversions, building on city-owned property and maximizing development opportunities by transferring air rights. He also said that the city needs to “accelerate the ULURP program,” referring to the city’s land use review process. The city’s Charter Revision Commission is already reviewing ways to do this.
“We are going to have to have a full-on assault to build affordable housing,” he said.
When asked, in a lightning round of questions, to name one agency they would cut funding from, Cuomo pointed to the need to reform HPD.
Mamdani called for scaling up HPD programs.
“We will lose the very New Yorkers who built this city and we will lose them unless we rapidly scale up the programs we already have in HPD,” Mamdani said, pointing to the Senior Affordable Rental Apartments and the Extremely Low- & Low-income Affordability programs, which subsidize low-income housing and affordable housing for seniors.
“We do this while also ensuring that it is easier to build even for the private sector,” he said, noting that the city needs to end requirements to build a minimum number of parking spaces with new development. The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity reduced these requirements but ultimately didn’t end them citywide.
The second debate came less than two weeks before the primary, and followed a new poll that showed Mamdani, for the first time, defeating Cuomo. Real estate executives have poured millions of dollars into Cuomo’s super PAC, and the landlord group New York Apartment Association has a super PAC that is planning to spend $2.5 million in support of the former governor.
This week, NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos told TRD that the race had clearly narrowed to a two-way race between Cuomo and Mamdani.
“We are at a crossroads here,” he said.
“One would completely decimate the housing stock,” he said. “The other would, should not.”
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