By Rebecca Picciotto

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has a pleasant surprise for dozens of New York City landlords: He is sparing them from his proposed rent freeze this year.

The mayor is planning to announce a new plan Tuesday to help rescue some of the most distressed rent-stabilized landlords. Eligible apartment owners will be able to charge a one-time rent increase on certain empty units, even if a rent freeze is enacted later this year.

The percentage increases would be determined on a case-by-case basis but could amount to hundreds of dollars a month in some cases.

Mamdani's plan includes a number of other lifelines to struggling landlords of affordable housing, such as making it easier to finance property improvements, secure tax exemptions and clear their housing-code violations. The city is also launching a $5 million loan program for landlords to help pay tenants' overdue rent and avoid evictions. The mayor's office estimates that tens of thousands of affordable apartments could use these policy tools.

The roughly 300,000 apartments financed through the city's housing agencies are potentially eligible for the rent increase once they are empty, along with other assistance. That is about a third of the city's overall rent-stabilized housing stock but includes large affordable-housing owners like Related. The Mamdani administration projects that hundreds of apartments could use the rent increase.

This rent-freeze exemption will only apply to vacant apartments in the city that are already financed and regulated by the city's housing agencies. Rent increases will be limited by the income caps set by the city.

"The reality is, they will all remain affordable," said Dina Levy, the commissioner of the city's Housing Preservation and Development Department. The mayor's office declined to estimate the size of the potential rent increases.

This package of policies is part of Mamdani's long-awaited housing plan, which also includes new details on his efforts to make it easier to build homes and expand tenant protections. Along with his goal of building 200,000 new residences, Mamdani is also now pledging to preserve 200,000 existing ones.

Mamdani, a little known assemblyman from Queens, shot to national prominence in his run for mayor by focusing on making New York City more affordable. His signature policy was a promise to freeze rents on the city's roughly one million rent-regulated apartments for all four years of his term.

That pledge unnerved rent-stabilized landlords who own buildings with piles of expensive debt that have been pushed further underwater by the rising cost of insurance, utilities and other expenses. They are already struggling with the city's current 3% caps on rent increases. A rent freeze, they say, would be the final death knell.

Confronted with that, the Mamdani administration has been scrambling to find new ways to offer landlords relief. In April, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg announced a new city-backed insurance program aimed at cutting apartment owners' insurance costs by 20% to 30%.

The Rent Guidelines Board votes in June to set the new limit for how much landlords of rent-stabilized units can hike their prices. Tenant and landlord groups alike expect a rent freeze to pass, at least this year if not for the remainder of Mamdani's first term.

Write to Rebecca Picciotto at Rebecca.Picciotto@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 26, 2026 07:32 ET (11:32 GMT)

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