The New York City panel that decides annually if and how much rents can go up for almost one million rent-stabilized apartments voted on Wednesday in favor of increases, after landlords said they needed more money to pay for rising expenses.
The nine-member panel, the Rent Guidelines Board, voted 5 to 4 to back increases of between 1.75 and 4.75 percent on one-year leases and between 4.75 and 7.75 percent for two-year leases. The vote was preliminary, and a final number within those ranges is expected to be approved by the board in the next two months.
The ranges suggested that during a mayoral race where rising rents are a big issue, the final increases are likely to be similar to what they were last year, when one-year leases went up by 2.75 percent and two-year leases by 5.25 percent.
Any increase would affect stabilized leases that start on or after Oct. 1.
Landlords and several housing experts have said that rising insurance, fuel and other costs are making it difficult to maintain apartment buildings, particularly older ones.
Mr. Adams said an increase of 7.75 percent would be too high. But he also said the board had made a tough decision to strike a balance between protecting “the quality of rent-stabilized homes” and “overburdening tenants with infeasible rent increases.”
As has been the case after nearly every annual vote, the outcome on Wednesday seemed to make nobody happy.
Advocates for tenants, pointing to a worsening housing crisis, said the increases would push lower-income New Yorkers even closer to the brink.
“We’re going to keep fighting,” said Joanne Grell, who has lived in a rent-stabilized apartment in Pelham Bay, in the Bronx, for 23 years. Ms. Grell, a co-chair of the Freeze the Rent campaign for the New York State Tenant Bloc, said advocates would “make our voices heard” at board hearings and the ballot box, supporting candidates who will commit to a freeze.
“We are the majority,” she said.
Landlords, however, said the increases fell short of what they need. Kenny Burgos, the chief executive of the New York Apartment Association, said in a statement that even the high end of the ranges was too modest.
“Following this inadequate adjustment, we now need elected officials to step up and lower the costs they can control — like property taxes, water and sewer payments, and energy prices,” he said. “If they do not take action, then thousands of rent-stabilized buildings will fail in the next year.”
On Wednesday, hundreds of renters and advocates filled the rows at LaGuardia Community College, where the vote took place, drowning out the board members with chants of “Housing is a human right.”
After the meeting, Zohran Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman and one of the leading left-leaning candidates for mayor, rallied dozens of tenants outside the college. He led chants of “freeze the rent,” drawing cheers from the crowd and jeers at Mayor Adams, and said New Yorkers’ future was on the ballot.
“When they increase the rent, they push New Yorkers’ out of their homes,” Mr. Mamdani said.
But a spokesman for City Hall said a rent freeze would be harmful for the city. “Freezing the rent would put buildings in jeopardy, and all but guarantees that renters would face a much steeper increase in the future to keep up with costs,” he said.
The rent stabilization system covers roughly half of all apartments in New York City. It is an important source of affordability: The typical monthly cost of a rent-stabilized apartment is about $1,500, compared with around $2,000 for market-rate units, according to the most recent city data.
The board, whose members are appointed by the mayor, seeks to balance the interests of landlords and tenants.
It looks at factors that primarily affect renters, including employment trends and wages, and those that affect landlords, including maintenance costs. The increases often track inflation, but are not directly pegged to it.
But the board’s decision also tends to reflect the priorities of the mayor.
Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was seen as tenant-friendly, the board allowed barely any increases. During his eight-year term, the board froze rent on one-year leases three times and never raised it more than 1.5 percent.
During the tenure of the current mayor, Eric Adams, who has been more publicly supportive of landlords than Mr. de Blasio, the board has backed bigger increases as costs and inflation soared during the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, the board approved rent increases of 2.75 percent on one-year leases and 5.25 percent on two-year leases, similar to the prior two years.
Because of New York City’s housing crisis, with few vacancies and rising market-rate rents, the board’s decision has become immensely political.
Several candidates who are running for mayor had called for the board to not allow any increases. Mr. Adams, however, had called that posture “idealism,” and said that small property owners were feeling the burden of increasing costs.
