NYCs failing small landlords deserve a Rent Guidelines Board split decision

When Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled his Block by Block housing plan last month — a plan that’s more anti-landlord politics than actual policy — the target on the backs of small rent-stabilized property owners grew even bigger. Small owners were already bracing for a punch to the gut this month, when the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board, now dominated by Mamdani appointees, will consider a rent freeze for one- and two-year leases on the city’s nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments.With the mayor’s majority control over the RGB, we fear the worst: A rent freeze is one of the few campaign promises Mamdani can deliver without needing state legislation or Gov.Kathy Hochul’s approval. A freeze would be a knockout blow for financially and physically distressed rent-stabilized buildings — and for thousands of vulnerable mom-and-pop, generational and immigrant owners operating under obstructive laws and constantly escalating costs.It seems Mamdani is setting small owners up for failure, clearing the way for a sinister plan to seize private property and convert it into socialist housing operated by his nonprofit and land-trust cronies.It’s no coincidence that a week before Mamdani unveiled his housing plan, the City Council reintroduced the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, a predatory law that would force financially distressed property owners to sell their buildings below market price to a pool of Mamdani-approved nonprofit housing providers.The RGB, now engaged in a series of public hearings before its final rent adjustment vote on June 25, can choose a different path.Board members must take a clear-eyed look at the RGB’s own research and data, listen to the independent economists warning of record numbers of financially distressed rent-stabilized properties, and reject City Hall’s politics.They — and Mamdani, too — have a unique opportunity to change this broken, one-sided system that works against small owners, the backbone of the c...