NYC landlords sue to block Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze

MANHATTAN (CN) — A group of landlords launched a bid on Wednesday against the New York City Rent Guidelines Board to stop its rent freeze for stabilized apartments, one of the signature campaign promises of Mayor Zohran Mamdani that helped propel him to Gracie Mansion.

In a 128-page lawsuit, filed in state court in Staten Island, the landlords claim the mayor “went to extraordinary lengths to pack the board with loyalists,” who then ignored data about rising property operating costs to push ahead with the agenda.

“To do the mayor’s bidding, this board then made a mockery of its statutory mandate, resorting to multiple manipulations of its own data to try to justify this irrational result,” they claim. “And this all comes amid unchecked inflation and rising costs that struggling landlords will have to bear to survive.”

Last month, the board approved the city’s first ever two-year halt on rent increases for stabilized units, voting in the freeze’s favor 7-1. But the landlords claim this was all part of a “sham process with a predetermined outcome,” pointing to the fact that Mamdani appointed six of the board’s nine members, “whom he knew would be predisposed to fulfilling his campaign promise to freeze the rent.”

That’s an affront to the independence of the board, the landlords say. They pointed to the sudden resignation of one of the board members, landlord attorney Christina Smith, who announced on the morning of the vote that she was stepping down because “this rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze.”

“The Rent Guidelines Board has stopped being a fact-finding body,” she said at the time. “It has become a body that starts with an answer and vibe codes its way backward to justify it.”

The landlords are pushing to stop the rent freeze and instead implement a rent increase, citing recent statistics that landlords’ operating costs in the city rose 5.3% in the most recent year and are projected to rise another 4.1%. They claim the board “arbitrarily and capriciously” manipulated this data to understate the rise in cost and “then rendered a decision that its own data did not support.”

“The mayor perverted what is supposed to be an independent regulatory process to deliver on his campaign promise,” they said, claiming some similarly-situated landlords could “stand to lose their properties.”

They’re seeking an order finding that the board’s rent freeze is “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, made in violation of lawful procedure and affected by errors of law.” They want the court to pause the decision from taking effect, thus “continuing current rent increase guidelines in the interim.”

In a statement to Courthouse News, Matt Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for the mayor, said the city’s law department will defend the board’s findings.

“The Rent Guidelines Board is an independent body,” Rauschenbach said. “We are confident that the Board evaluated all of the relevant data and considered the factors facing both tenants and landlords across New York City. The Law Department is prepared to defend the RGB’s decisions. The Mamdani administration remains committed to the success of the rent stabilization system which has prevented displacement and provided stability to generations of New Yorkers.”

The group of plaintiffs is made up of seven limited liability companies that own rent stabilized buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. They’re being represented, in part, by Randy Mastro, the former top deputy mayor to Mamdani’s predecessor and top political opponent Eric Adams.

Mastro infamously resigned after Mamdani’s election win in late 2025, telling the press, “I will never work for a socialist" — though Mamdani’s transition team indicated that Mastro would be replaced, regardless.

The 69-year old attorney, who once served as Rudy Giuliani’s chief of staff, has since gotten himself involved in several lawsuits against the city since Mamdani’s tenure began in 2026. He’s on the legal team fighting to block an East Village intake shelter, and has also sued the mayor’s office to compel Freedom of Information Law disclosure relating to Mamdani’s rollback on Israel-related executive orders.

Adams tried to stack the Rent Guidelines Board with nominees of his own at the end of his mayoralty, in hopes of blocking an incoming Mamdani from doing the same and passing a rent freeze — he was ultimately unsuccessful.

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