Eric Adams is considering appointing new members to the Rent Guidelines Board before his term expires, which could make it harder for frontrunner Zohran Mamdani to fulfill his promise to freeze rent for the city’s 2 million stabilized tenants. If Adams makes those appointments, it would leave the board split, sources say.
The last Rent Guidelines Board vote, pictured here in June, where members voter to increased rents for stabilized apartments by 3 percent. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s promise to “freeze the rent” for the city’s 2 million rent stabilized tenants has captured the race for mayor, and won him support of many New Yorkers concerned about the cost of housing.
But the controversial proposal could be under threat from outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, as he considers appointing new members to the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), the body that sets allowable rent increases for the city’s rent stabilized apartments each June, as the New York Post first reported.
Those new members could make getting the necessary votes to freeze the rent more difficult for a potential Mamdani administration.
“This is unprecedented that a lame duck mayor would last minute stack the Rent Guidelines Board to subvert the next mayor,” said Ritti Singh, communications director with the New York State Tenant Bloc, a group organizing for the freeze.
The board has nine members, all of whom are appointed by the mayor: four public members, two landlord representatives, two tenant representatives, and a chair. They serve two, three, or four year terms.
Currently, seven members of the board are serving in “expired” terms, which means that they can step down or be reappointed or replaced by the mayor at any time. Mayors often let RGB members stay on after their terms expire because it provides them maximum flexibility to control the board, sources say.
Before the end of the year, Adams could replace two public members, one landlord member, and one tenant member who would serve the remainder of terms that extend through 2026.
(Credit: Patrick Spauster/City Limits)
Adams could also replace one additional landlord and tenant representative, Robert Ehrlich and Adan Soltran. But they would serve just two months before the end of the term, when a potential Mamdani administration could replace them in January.
A spokesperson for City Hall did not deny that Adams was considering appointing new members. The mayor has been critical of Mamdani’s rent freeze idea, which he said is “bad policy, short-sighted, and only puts tenants in harm’s way.”
Adams is not running for re-election, and recently endorsed Mamdani’s competitor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the race.
“Just as he inherited appointees from the Rent Guidelines Board when he took office, Mayor Adams has the authority to appoint members to the board,” said City Hall Spokesperson Kayla Mamelak in a statement.
During the Adams administration, the board voted four times to raise rent, totaling a 12 percent increase, according to the Community Service Society.
If Adams makes all possible appointments to the board before his term ends at the end of the year, it would leave the next mayor with a split board. There would be five Eric Adams appointees—four new appointees with one holdover—and should he win, four new spots Mamdani could fill.
Assuming four new Adams appointees would be against the rent freeze, and four new Mamdani appointees would be for it, that would leave one member in between administrations: Alex Armlovich.
“Just as I wouldn’t want the next mayor to just make political picks… I wouldn’t want the current mayor to pick all public members who are actually just landlord members,” Armlovich told City Limits.
Armlovich, a housing policy expert with the Niskanen Center, was appointed by Adams in March 2025 and is serving a term that runs through the end of 2026. Because his term has not expired, he cannot be replaced before its end. He voted for a 3 percent hike on rent stabilized leases earlier this year, but told City Limits he does not know how he would vote next year.
“Our obligation is to look at the data,” he said.
That board breakdown would leave a Mamdani administration with a challenge. They would either need to convince Armlovich or a new appointee to vote for the freeze, apply public pressure, or replace them. RGB members can only be removed “for cause,” making firing a member legally complicated, as Gothamist reported.
Mayor Eric Adams and mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani. (Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office, Ron Adar/Shutterstock.com)
If Adams does appoint new members, any path to a freeze would also involve the hypothetical Mamdani administration finding a landlord member willing to vote for a rent freeze to replace the expiring term of Robert Ehrlich. Adams would also need to find a tenant member willing to raise the rent.
“We are very confident that [potential Mamdani administration officials] are going to do everything possible to make sure they deliver on this campaign promise,” said Singh.
“It’s possible that the existing composition of the Rent Guidelines Board in January will, by June, vote for a rent freeze. It’s possible that by June we are going to have a different set of Rent Guidelines Board members than we did in January,” she added.
Were the RGB to vote for a rent increase in 2025, it would take until 2026 for a Mamdani administration to have full control over the board’s appointees, when the terms of four new appointees would expire.
Armlovich told City Limits that he would consider a rent freeze if the data supported it. “You bring in flat cost data, we could freeze rents,” he said.
He’d also consider it if there was a plan to lower costs for distressed rent stabilized buildings: improving hardship programs, reforming property taxes that overburden multifamily apartment buildings, or address rising insurance rates.
He said he was encouraged to see mayoral frontrunner Mamdani talk about programs and reforms that could tackle those costs.
Whether the data—which is usually a year old when the RGB is deliberating—actually supports a freeze or an increase is hotly contested. The Tenant Bloc pointed to a 12 percent increase in landlord profits this past year, and 10 percent the year before. But landlord groups counter that those numbers include many buildings that have both market rate and rent stabilized units, and that buildings with all rent stabilized buildings can’t keep up.
“For the past decade, the RGB has adjusted rents below inflation and well below operating costs, as the property tax burden has continued to grow. The result has been the severe defunding of thousands of buildings, leading to physical deterioration and worse living conditions for many renters,” said Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, in a statement.
Burgos and other landlord groups have highlighted the RGB’s legal responsibility to look at updated data about landlord costs, arguing that a premeditated freeze would not be allowed.
At the first mayoral debate, Mamdani said he believed the data would justify a rent freeze next year, and criticized the sitting mayor for looking to pack the board on his way out.
“It is a fitting end to an administration that has been a betrayal of working-class New Yorkers,” he said in an interview with the news outlet Hell Gate.
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