NYC rent board dissenter warns Mamdani-backed freeze could hurt affordable housing over time: 'Slow burn'

Arpit Gupta, the only member of New York City's Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) to vote against the rent freeze, told Fox News Digital the policy could gradually push older rent-stabilized buildings into disrepair by depriving landlords of revenue needed for capital improvements.Gupta is also worried that the freeze, a central campaign promise from Mayor Zohran Mamdani, could make it more difficult for landlords to pay their bills."It's a little bit of a slow burn," said Gupta, an associate finance professor at New York University’s business school.

"The risk is that the buildings do go under more distress. There are a variety of responses. One is...

deferred maintenance, which will worsen the physical conditions of buildings."He continued: "There are other avenues of distress, like going behind on mortgage payments, insurance payments, eventually property taxes, which leaves the property to be transferred in ownership to a bank or to the city, possibly for a tax lien sale."NEW YORK PROPERTY OWNER OPENS UP ABOUT THE IMPACT OF RENT FREEZESRGB Chair Chantella Mitchell, whom Mamdani appointed in February, acknowledged in her statement following the June 25 vote that landlords are facing soaring property tax and insurance costs but argued that most "remain able to meet rising costs."

Gupta, first appointed to the board by former Mayor Eric Adams in 2022, does not dispute Mitchell's claim that many landlords are doing fine.Rather, he argues that the financial strain on the city's rent-stabilized housing stock is not the same all around, with older buildings that rely almost entirely on regulated rents facing a much greater burden than newer, mixed-income properties.The board under Mamdani went further than it did under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose administration froze rents three times — in 2015, 2016 and 2020 — but only for one-year leases.

The current freeze will affect roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments and applies to one- and two-year leases that run from O