On the day he was sworn in as New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani began pushing his agenda to make the city more affordable for residents, including by lowering the cost of rent.
On January 1, he signed an executive order launching two new task forces, one that would “leverage city-owned land and accelerate development,” the Democratic mayor said, and another that would remove red tape slowing down housing construction.
“We will not wait to deliver action. We will stand up on behalf of the tenants of this city,” Mamdani said.
But experts have warned that no matter how quickly and boldly the new mayor moves to tackle New York City’s housing affordability crisis, it will likely take years for renters in the city to feel relief.
“These projects take quite a while to be built and even longer for their impact on the overall rent level to be felt,” Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner said in a recent report. “Expect at least three years before the supply-side relief to come online.”
Newsweek contacted Mamdani’s office for comment by email on Monday outside standard working hours.
What Mamdani Has Promised
Mamdani has promised to focus on working-class New Yorkers and lower the cost of living in the city through a political agenda that has sparked a national conversation on affordability and has drawn skepticism from across the political spectrum.
Among his most popular and most talked-about campaign promises is freezing rent for rent-stabilized apartments.Â
In a city where renters are predominant, New York City’s rent prices are among the highest in the world. According to data cited by NYU Furman Center, 67 percent of New Yorkers were renters in 2023, against 35 percent of Americans nationwide, and over half were cost-burdened, meaning they spent over 30 percent of their income on rent.
While freezing the rent for New York City’s almost 1 million rent-stabilized units would affect only a small portion of the city’s rental market, the impact would be felt by some 2.5 million New Yorkers—almost 30 percent of the city’s population, according to the Manhattan Institute.
Mamdani has also promised to lower the cost of groceries, make buses free and offer free and subsidized child care to parents in the city—something he has already moved to introduce for thousands of New Yorkers.
The mayor has also vowed to build 200,000 new units of affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes over the next 10 years, in what would be a significant expansion of the current efforts ongoing in the city.
“His policies are not only feasible, but they could work to improve the lives of a majority of New Yorkers who face housing precarity … food insecurity, the inability to afford childcare, and who suffer from the general feeling that our labor is getting sucked from us without letting us live decent lives,” Maliha Safri, a professor of economics at Drew University, wrote in a recent guest blog for the Democracy Collaborative think tank.
What Obstacles Mamdani Faces
While some of Mamdani’s campaign promises may be feasible, experts say others could face opposition by key lawmakers and take time to affect the market.
According to Realtor.com, a rent freeze would be “the most immediate and the most politically symbolic” move. But even if Mamdani pushes through a freeze in time for lease renewals starting October 1—a record time—”the decision ultimately lies with the Rent Guidelines Board, an appointed panel that sets renewal rates for stabilized leases each year,” the report continued.
Even if he managed to get the measure passed through the board, Mamdani would still face potential challenges—as proved by what happened in St. Paul, Minnesota, after the city capped the amount the rent could increase to 3 percent annually in 2022.
While renters felt immediate relief, Realtor.com reported, new housing development plummeted. A MinnPost analysis showed new housing permits in St. Paul fell 80 percent in 2024 from the previous three-year average.
Landlords in New York City have been raising the concern that something similar could happen in the city if Mamdani introduces a rent freeze.
“Owners say a freeze could make those units permanently unaffordable to maintain, further shrinking the city’s available rental stock and undermining the very tenants the freeze is meant to help,” Realtor.com wrote.
These fears could be dissipated by the 200,000 new units promised by the mayor. But even if everything goes according to plan and Mamdani reaches this ambitious goal, that new supply will not be available until at least 2028, Berner said.
Some time could be shaved off by Mamdani’s task forces cutting red tape and fast-tracking the land-use review process, but even then, New York City might be short of the number of homes it needs.
According to the Independent Budget Office, New York City needs as many as 500,000 units over the next 10 years to improve affordability in the city.
What Mamdani Has Done So Far
The mayor has been in office for about two weeks, but he has already moved to introduce measures aimed at making New York City housing more affordable.
In Executive Order 3, he revived the Office to Protect Tenants, choosing housing advocate Cea Weaver as director. In Executive Orders 4 and 5, he created the Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) and Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED) task forces, respectively, which should allow the city to build more new housing inventory faster.Â
In Executive Order 8, Mamdani directed multiple departments to conduct public “Rental Ripoff” hearings throughout the city, with an eye to identify problems caused by “negligent and dishonest” landlords. In Executive Order 9, the mayor established a task force to combat junk fees and hidden charges that inflate prices on goods and services at checkout.
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