In New York City, tenants and landlords have been cast as adversaries in a housing drama neither group wrote.
Each year, the Rent Guidelines Board holds several meetings to discuss and vote on how much rent-stabilized tenants will pay. The last proposal allows for hikes of up to 4.75% on one-year leases and 7.75% on two-year leases. But the more urgent question is not the percentage: it is the premise.
The city treats housing like a balance sheet entry, where advocating for profit seems to be the most logical path. This approach undermines affordability for a city with a housing shortage and deepens the rift between tenants and landlords.
That tension is embedded within the RGB itself. The structure mirrors the city’s fragmented housing logic: two members represent tenants, two represent landlords and five others are appointed by the mayor. In theory, this design suggests balance.
In practice, it often stages a symbolic standoff between tenant and landlord, where the five appointees tilt towards the mayor’s view, not by decree, but by pattern.
Under former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, increases were expected to be 2% to 5%, year after year. Former Mayor Bill De Blasio disrupted that pattern with rent freezes and minimal hikes, and his board echoed a broader tenant-focused agenda at that time. However, this shift didn’t last long.
Mayor Eric Adams has called rent hikes “necessary” to protect the small mom-and-pop landlords, framing the crisis as theirs too. As a solution, the RGB followed suit: 3.25% increase in 2022, 3% in 2023 and now eyeing a 4.75% and higher for two-year leases. Judging from the past, the final meeting set at the end of June will likely mirror Adams’ touted rhetoric and not challenge it.
Yet, the sympathetic narrative around the small landlord obscures the reality. According to JustFix, a tenants rights nonprofit, in 2022, 89% of rental units in New York City were owned by corporations, demonstrating that, as the mayor suggests, it’s rarely the mom-and-pop landlord who bears the brunt of the crisis. Housing is no longer treated as a basic need but strictly as a business.
It is true that landlords are facing rising costs in property taxes, utilities and maintenance, as reported in the RGB 2025 Price Index of Operating Costs. As in any business, it makes sense to pass these increases onto consumers to protect profit. However, housing isn’t just a commodity – it’s shelter.
Housing supply has stalled in NYC, where undeveloped land is scarce and restrictive zoning laws block new construction.
Meanwhile, demand keeps climbing, driving prices higher and pushing rent-stabilized units, which were meant to offer affordability, further out of reach. Each rent hike approved by the RGB pushes rent-stabilized housing further from stability, leaving tenants increasingly vulnerable.
Rather than debating incremental adjustments to stabilized rents, the city should offer landlords incentives, easing their rising costs without shifting burdens onto tenants.
This approach won’t solve everything – no single solution can, but it might reduce these yearly increments.
In a city defined by diversity and density, framing stabilized housing as a shared responsibility rather than a profit-driven investment is not only fair but necessary.
As long as rent-stabilized housing is treated like an economic contest instead of a basic right, the divide between tenants and landlords will only grow.
The skyline might suggest grandeur and wealth for all New Yorkers, but beneath its shadow is a city that most people increasingly struggle to afford.
