Last week’s primary contests and the subsequent rent freeze vote were a one-two punch for the real estate industry.
Both further dimmed hopes for favorable city and statewide policy, while setting up potential legal challenges from those who oppose the board’s determination.
After the Rent Guidelines Board approved the freeze seven to one, politicians in attendance cheered the historic vote as a key step to unlocking support for Albany’s broader housing goals.
“Today the tenants showed their power, but this is just the beginning of the shift of power back to the tenants of the City of New York,” Assembly member Marcela Mitaynes said to a crowd of tenant activists gathered outside after the RGB approved 0 percent increases for one- and two-year leases in rent-stabilized units.
Newly minted Democratic nominees to the Assembly, Samantha Kattan and Illapa Sairitupac, housing rights organizers employed by the Urban Homestead Assistance Board and Cooper Square Committee, respectively, also showed up at El Museo del Barrio to support the freeze.
“I’ve been coming out to RGB hearings as a tenant organizer for years,” Kattan told me following the vote. “A lot of our tenant protection is legislated at the state level. I knew that we needed more tenant advocates, organizers in the legislature, that was definitely part of my motivation for running.”
Kattan aims to use her likely Assembly seat to expand housing ownership models, create social housing and even push for an expansion of rent stabilization across the state with the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act.
Tenant advocates at the rally see the rent freeze as not only a policy win delivering one of Mayor Mamdani’s three core campaign promises, but as a major step toward their next goal: a rent rollback.
“For us it’s always been about making sure that tenants are able to live with dignity in their apartments,” Mitaynes told me.
The Assembly member saw the 2019 Housing Stability & Tenant Protection Act’s passage as an attempt to close loopholes, part of a statewide housing agenda that includes yet-to-pass legislation like the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act and REST Act.
The doubling of the left coalition’s numbers in Albany is likely to boost interest in passing the TOPA bill and other housing legislation Mitaynes has championed during her five years in the legislature.
What we’re thinking about: Will a new wave of leftist lawmakers have the numbers or the pull to shape Albany’s agenda in their image? Send a note to ben.miller@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: A water sommelier ranked New York City tap water as the best in the country, earning a perfect 10/10 in a blind taste test that pitted tap waters from cities including Baltimore, Cincinnati, Washington, D.C. and Jersey City against each other.
— Spencer Davis
Elsewhere:
— Arpit Gupta, the lone dissenting member of the Rent Guidelines Board who voted against yesterday’s rent freeze, wrote an op-ed for City Journal detailing the long-term costs of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze. “Freezing the price of a service indefinitely while its costs continue to rise does not produce cheap or abundant service,” he wrote. “Instead, it produces deteriorating assets and, eventually, public bailouts and takeovers.”
— A handshake deal between Council Speaker Julie Menin and Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the city’s upcoming budget has been delayed after Council members demanded more money for a city-funded housing voucher program known as CityFHEPS, The City Reporter reported. The City Council passed laws in 2023 that would expand the program’s eligibility, but Mamdani earlier this year appealed a court ruling that would require the city to do so despite promising on the campaign trail to expand the program. The budget is due Tuesday.
— Mayor Zohran Mamdani has hired Annie Elisa Minguez as executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Nonprofit Services, NBC New York reported. Minguez will work with hundreds of local nonprofits across the city to implement Mamdani’s affordability agenda, including childcare and housing services.
— Spencer Davis
Closing time…
Residential: The most expensive residential sale recorded Friday was $23.5 million at The Witkoff Group’s One High Line condo. The 5,200 square foot unit at Chelsea’s 500 West 18th Street, PH33B is a new development. Corcoran’s Deborah Kern and Steve Gold had the listing.
Commercial: The most expensive commercial transaction was $24 million for 245 Eldridge Street. The mixed-use building is 18,700 square feet and last sold in 2018 for $14.2 million.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $12.7 million for 180 East 73rd Street. The Lenox Hill townhome is 6,800 square feet. Leslie J. Garfield last had the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 117,939-square-foot, 14-story, mixed-use building at 294 4th Avenue in Park Slope. Fariba Makooi of Fischer + Makooi Architects is the applicant of record.
— Joseph Jungermann
