Push to Freeze the Rent in New York Clears Major Hurdle

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push to freeze rents for nearly one million New York City apartments cleared a major hurdle on Thursday night when a city panel backed rents that included leases with no increases.

In a preliminary vote, the panel, the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board, supported increases of between 0 and 2 percent on one-year leases, and 0 and 4 percent on two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments. A vote on the final numbers, which will fall within those ranges, will take place on June 25.

The vote was seven in favor, one against and one abstention, with the two representatives of landlords not voting yes.

The decisions of the panel are contentious every year, but the stakes are especially high as the city faces one of its worst affordability crises in generations.

An extreme shortage of housing has sent housing coasts soaring, with the median asking rent on a new lease citywide at about $4,120 in April 2026, according to the renting platform StreetEasy, up from $2,800 in April 2019.

The rent-stabilization system, by contrast, was designed to protect renters from price shocks, and it has largely moderated increases: A household that rented an apartment that was $2,800 in 2019, and renewed a lease every year, would pay about $3,250 monthly today.