How NYC Mayor Mamdanis landlord hiked rent on his old apartment 35% and others could follow suit

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s former landlord hiked rent on the pol’s previous rent-stabilized apartment in Queens by 35% — an example of the tactics fed-up property managers could use to skirt the city’s new rent-freeze.NYC’s Rent Guidelines Board voted last week to freeze rent increases on tenant renewals for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized units starting in October — one of the main planks of Mamdani’s far-left platform.A later vote will decide whether the freeze lasts through 2028.In the meantime, landlords are moving to get around the policy and hike leases for new tenants of rent-stabilized units to the highest price allowed by the state.That’s what happened in the prewar Astoria, Queens, building that Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji called home for many years — with the socialist “nepo baby” paying just $2,300 for a modest, one-bedroom unit.After Mamdani vacated the apartment and moved across the East River into Gracie Mansion earlier this year, a new tenant moved into the no-frills unit — coughing up $3,100 per month while the apartment remains rent-stabilized, as The Post reported.Cesar Guevara, the associate broker at BOND New York who leased the unit, told the Wall Street Journal that Mamdani’s landlord rushed to renovate the unit in order to secure a higher rent from a new tenant.“The apartment is going to be making a lot more money than when Mamdani was in there,” Guevara said.Even as the rent-freeze takes hold across the five boroughs, landlords still have some options to secure increases, like updating the boilers, windows or roofs – which allows them to charge a 2% premium – or installing new appliances to raise rents in specific units.In 2018, when Mamdani moved into Astoria’s Princess Martha building, he clinched a discounted rate below the legal limit because it was a weaker market and less popular neighborhood – though he still complained that his rent was highway robbery.“Today, our 1 bedroom rent stabil...