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NYC’s failing small landlords deserve a Rent Guidelines Board split decision

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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........

© New York Post