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New York Mayor Mamdani's 'freeze the rent' promise survives a noisy vote
"Freeze the rent!" tenants shouted, applauding every mention of the word 'zero' from the nine board members who sat behind a table onstage, and booing every number they heard larger than that.
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Reuters - Mon, 11, May 2026
- 17:32 EDT
- 24
Moreom Perven attends a public hearing as New York City's Rent Guidelines Board provisionally votes on a rent freeze, in New York City, U.S., May 7, 2026. / REUTERS/Heather Khalifa
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's best-known campaign promise was tentatively advanced in a cacophonous college auditorium as a city housing board agreed in a provisional vote to consider freezing the rent for about a million regulated apartments.
In a weeks-long annual ritual culminating in a final vote in June, the city's Rent Guidelines Board fixes how much landlords can raise the rent for tenants of rent-stabilized apartments, home to about a quarter of all New Yorkers. The board weighs tenants' wages and landlords' incomes from their buildings, inflation, taxes, shifts in housing supply and myriad other factors in closely scrutinized public calculations.
Also Read: Obama dubs Mamdani an ‘extraordinary talent’
In the provisional vote late on May 7, barely audible over the chanting and cheering of hundreds of tenants filling the audience, the board set a range ahead of the next month's final vote: rent adjustments of zero to 2 percent for 1-year lease renewals, and zero to 4 percent for 2-year renewals. In short, a rent freeze remains a possibility, but an increase has not been ruled out.
"Freeze the rent!" tenants shouted, applauding every mention of the word 'zero' from the nine board members who sat behind a table onstage, and booing every number they heard larger than that. "Fight! Fight! Fight! Housing is a human right!" they chanted.
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