Mamdani's fat rent hike for Bronx complex Tracey Towers shows his true housing cluelessness

Turns out Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze will only apply to some New Yorkers, while his own Department of Housing Preservation and Development sends others’ rents through the roof.HPD proposes a nearly 30% rent hike over four years at Tracey Towers, a Mitchell-Lama complex in The Bronx, citing a need to cover big bills for repairs, maintenance and mortgage.

Meanwhile, the Mamdani-packed Rent Guidelines Board is moving ahead with 0% hikes for countless other landlords who face the very same challenges.The mayor’s new Office of Mass Engagement is organizing a “community” pressure campaign to stage a show of popular anger to justify the RGB delivering on his promised freeze for tenants in rent-stabilized units.No worries about how rent-regulated landlords — owners of more than 40% of the city’s rental units — will cover their soaring costs, though many of them are already under water.Meanwhile, Mamdani’s HPD proposes double-digit rent hikes at the Bronx complex to cover its mortgage arrears, repair and other operating expenses.One more time: Pre-1974 rent-stabilized buildings are in crisis, with low rent revenues, high property-tax burdens, soaring utility costs and zero help from the city or state.Meanwhile, the crisis at once-comfortable Mitchell-Lama middle-income housing like Tracey Towers built over decades under the “watchful” eye of government bureaucrats despite millions in government subsidies.State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has for years noted the financial stresses on these complexes, built under past laws aiming to provide affordable housing, which can’t afford renovations to put vacant units back on the market.Similar financial stresses, low rent-rolls and the state 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection strictures now keep over 57,000 rent-stabilized apartments off the market, too.

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