The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) voted 5–4 to increase the rent for rent stabilized units in New York City once again on June 30 at the El Museo del Barrio. The determined rates of increase are a 3% increase for one-year leases and a 4.5% increase for two-year leases. The new rents will take effect for leases beginning on Oct. 1 of 2025.
The four votes opposing the rent increases were from Robert Ehrlich and Christina Smyth, who represent landlords and owners, and Genesis Aquino and Adán Soltren, who represent tenants.
“Taxes and insurance increases year over year are devastating older rent stabilized buildings. Add high water and sewer costs and an 11% Con Edison rate hike. When the government continues to fail, the responsibility for long term viability of the rent stabilized housing stock falls on this rent guidelines board. If we continue to adjust rates to below inflation, we are dooming buildings to failure,” said Smyth at the final vote, over shouts of opposition from the crowd.
During his testimony on Monday night, Soltren condemned the RGB, explaining that their decisions to increase the rent over the last three years has shown a lack of empathy for tenants across the city.
“If you actually cared about New Yorkers, and saw them as your neighbors, your family members, your friends, you would understand the only option is to freeze the rent and encourage other government entities and lobbyists to create solutions to the problems that business owners are facing,” said Soltren. “Anything less than that continues the cycles of dehumanizing tenants and normalizing their continued struggle and abuse in such an inequitable system.”
The originally proposed rents were between 1.75% and 4.75% for one-year leases, and between 3.75% and 7.75% for two-year leases.
“Instead of investing in ways to keep people housed and buildings stable, this administration keeps choosing displacement. It’s not policy — it’s abandonment,” stated NYC Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez, disapproving of the RGB’s decision and the subsequent impact on over two million New Yorkers.
The final vote, which was open to the public, followed five other public meetings in which tenants were able to testify in front of the board, many of them opposing the rent increases and sharing personal stories.
“We’re the reason New York shines, not luxury developers, not corporate landlords. But now they want to kick us out. To replace our families with strangers who will never know the blood, sweat, and tears we poured into these neighborhoods,” said Camilla, a renter in Sunset Park, during the public hearing at the NYC College of Technology in Brooklyn.
Various city council members and elected officials were present at the public meetings, some deciding to testify in front of the RGB. Shahana Hanif, a NYC Council Member for District 39, shared her own testimony in front of the board, as well as reading a statement from NYC Comptroller Brad Lander.
“This isn’t just morally necessary, it’s economically feasible. Landlords net operating income increased by 8 percent, even after adjusting for inflation. And with targeted support for distressed buildings, we can stabilize both tenants and owners,” said the statement from Lander read by Hanif.
NYC Council Member Lincoln Restler commented on the housing and affordability crisis for New Yorkers, “more than one third of New Yorkers…[are] paying a majority of their income in rent.” He added, “Substantial rent increases on working families make it harder for people to get by. At least the end is near for the annual rent hikes rubber stamped by Eric Adams’ Rent Guidelines Boards.”
The RGB has the possibility to completely change in the next upcoming year, after NYS Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani’s win of the Democratic NYC Mayoral Primary. Mamdani has shared his plans to freeze rent for those in stabilized housing by replacing members of the board with those who “understand that landlords are doing just fine,” and will vote for a rent freeze.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams urged the RGB to “adopt the lowest increase possible,” but he ultimately does not support a rent freeze because of the decline of housing conditions in rent-stabilized units across the city.
“Demands to ‘freeze the rent’ would exacerbate these harmful health and safety issues inside the homes of more than 1 million New Yorkers by depriving owners of the resources needed to make repairs — a cruel and dangerous proposal. While freezing the rent may sound like a catchy slogan, it is bad policy, short-sighted, and only puts tenants in harm’s way,” said Adams in a statement following the results of the vote.
The Greenline 