Amid a 2025 NYC mayor’s race in which several Democratic candidates have shown interest in freezing rent increases for stabilized tenants, Mayor Eric Adams not only declined on Monday to do the same but also challenged his rivals to pair their proposals with plans to protect small landlords from taking a financial hit.
During an unrelated April 28 press conference in Brooklyn, the mayor did not directly answer a reporter’s question about whether he would support freezing the rent for the city’s roughly one million stabilized tenants. Instead, he argued that small landlords facing rising costs need to be able to increase rents to hold onto their buildings.
“When you’re not mayor, you can be so idealistic that you’re not realistic,” said Adams, who is running as an independent in the November general election, of his Democratic opponents.
“When we start talking about just an across-the-board rent freeze, we need to start talking to those small property owners, how does it impact them? Gas doesn’t freeze, electricity doesn’t freeze, insurance doesn’t freeze, the cost of running a building doesn’t freeze,” he added.
Adams, a small landlord himself, said the candidates pitching the policy should also demonstrate how they would safeguard property owners who could face financial ruin under a rent freeze.
“We have to protect small property owners. I want to hear their plan on that,” Adams said. “I’m not talking about the person that has 2,000 units. I’m talking about that mother or that father who came from Puerto Rico, or came from Alabama, or came from the Dominican Republic, or some parts of the country and put everything that they had in their small property.”
The mayor appoints all nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), which controls rent increases for the city’s stabilized apartments. The board has great sway over whether and by how much it raises rents each year.
Adams’ RGB appointees have opted to increase rents during each of his last three years in office. It raised rents by 2.75% for one-year leases last year and 3% the year before.
So far, Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, is the only candidate who has committed to a rent freeze. It is one of the core proposals of his campaign, which has gained significant traction as he has hit the fundraising max and is polling in second place to front-runner former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo, whose campaign has drawn massive support from the real estate industry, called freezing the rent a “politically convenient posture” in his recently unveiled housing plan. The document says Cuomo would appoint board members to make decisions “based on the evidence,” balancing the need to keep rent increases low with keeping landlords’ costs down.
It appears Mamdani has pushed several of his rivals — including city Comptroller Brad Lander, his predecessor Scott Stringer, and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams — to warm up to the idea of freezing the rent. The three have all reportedly said the RGB should not increase rents this year, but have declined to fully embrace a implementing a rent freeze as mayor.
The RGB will vote on preliminary rent increase ranges for the coming year this Thursday. It will then hold a final vote in the coming weeks.
