Latest news with #rentfreeze
Fox News
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Comedian Michael Rapaport mocks NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani as 'Zohran the moron'
Comedian and New York City resident Michael Rapaport gave democratic socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a new nickname during his podcast on Tuesday. Rapaport called Mamdani "Zohran the Moron," pronouncing his first name so it rhymes with moron, and vowing that he would not leave his home city even if the democratic socialist candidate became mayor. "I've heard a lot of people say that if Zohran the Moron wins the election, you're going to leave New York. New Yorkers, if Zohran the Moron wins the election, don't go anywhere," he said, telling them not to let him run them out of their city. Mamdani's primary win has caused alarm among Jewish New Yorkers because of the candidate's rhetoric and stances surrounding Israel. During an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, Mamdani refused to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada." After receiving blowback for refusing to denounce the slogan, Mamdani reportedly told city business leaders that he would not use the phrase and would discourage others from doing so. Business leaders are also concerned about the candidate's democratic socialist policies, like his proposed rent freeze policy. Rapaport, a Jew who became an outspoken advocate for Israel following the Oct. 7 terror attack, urged fellow New Yorkers to "not let this terrorist supporter, socialist bulls--- artist run you out of your city." "He's not even from here," he continued. "Do not even think you're going to leave New York City if Zohran the Moron wins the election. I'm going nowhere." Mamdani, a Ugandan-born Muslim New York State Assemblyman from Queens, beat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to become the Democratic Party's nominee for mayor. Rapaport noted that even though he'll take a financial hit if Mamdani wins and enacts his far-left policies, he will still stay in the city. "I'm never leaving New York for a Three-Card Monty playing bulls--- artist like you, Zohran the Moron," he said. "If this guy wins, we need to blame ourselves. We need to dust ourselves off and make New York great again." Rapaport has spoken out against the mayoral candidate since he won the Democratic primary race last month. In an interview with NewsNation earlier this month, the comedian lamented, "We are this close to having a person like that become mayor of what should be considered the greatest city in the world." "But the fact that this guy is even in contention is a slap in the face," he added. "Whether he wins or loses, it is a slap in the face." Mamdani didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Expert flips script on key Mamdani housing problem he says will make crisis worse: 'Basic economics'
EXCLUSIVE: As New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani pushes solutions to the city's housing issues, including a rent freeze, Fox News Digital spoke to a local expert who said Mamdani's agenda will do more harm than good to the housing situation. "The fundamental problem with New York City's housing market is that there is not enough supply to meet the demand," John Ketcham, a legal policy fellow and director of cities at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital. "The city government has prevented the private sector from building enough housing through zoning, through other forms of regulation, through affordability requirements and so forth, and so we've had more jobs created in New York City than housing units to support the population of newcomers and so that has simply increased prices. Prices are an effect of the supply-demand dynamic. They're not a cause, they're an effect." Mamdani, positioning himself as a champion of the working class and someone who would address the housing crisis with policies like a rent freeze, doesn't address the actual problem. "Assembly member Mamdani's proposal to freeze the rent would only apply to the 1 million units of rent-stabilized apartments," Ketcham said. "Now, these are units that can only increase in rents by an amount that the rent guidelines board determines and those members of the rent guidelines board are appointed by the mayor. So he would essentially appoint these members and direct them to keep rents stable." Ketcham continued, "Now, rents are already not covering increased operational costs for the owners of these rent-stabilized buildings and so the quality of the rent-stabilized housing stock is deteriorating rapidly and will continue to do so if the capital is not there to cover maintenance and operational costs. Roofs leak and boilers break. These things have to be fixed and there has to be enough in the rent increases to allow for these increased costs. If there isn't, then we're going to see a situation where tenants are living in worse and worse conditions each year." Ketcham told Fox News Digital that the situation raises the question, "Is that the type of city that we want to create?" "Or do we want a city where we have an abundance of new housing, where young people can feel like they have an option from among many different buildings and neighborhoods, where they can find the place that best suits their preferences and needs?" Ketcham said. Ketcham also said a key issue in the New York City housing market is that the city already has the largest public housing authority in the country, totaling 177,000 units. According to Ketcham, those residents are already "truly suffering from gross mismanagement." "It takes our public housing Authority, NYSHA, 413 days to complete a repair on average," Ketcham said. "It's so bad that our far-left public advocate, Jumaane Williams, has repeatedly called NYSHA the worst landlord in the city. So these are issues where we're looking at what kind of city is New York going to be? Is it going to a place that rewards aspiration and that tries to attract newcomers who want to live in conditions that are getting better every year? Or is it going to stay stagnant and simply appeal to those who seek security above all else?" Mamdani, who has made lowering costs for New Yorkers a cornerstone of his campaign, has also proposed building 200,000 affordable housing units. Mamdani's plan, aimed at tackling the tag team crisis of affordability and housing, includes an immediate freeze on more than 2 million rent-stabilized apartments. Fox News Digital asked Ketcham if he thinks the housing situation will get worse under a Mamdani administration, and he replied, "I do." Ketcham explained his belief that rent controls "reduce the quality and the quantity of housing by reducing investment." "That's just the basic economics of it," Ketcham said. "It's been tried in other cities like in Chicago and in St. Louis with Cabrini-Green and Pruitt-Igoe, which were historic failures in public housing." "The residents of these places have to contend with mold, rats and other vermin; they have all sorts of crime issues as well, so those experiments simply did not work. What does work is allowing the private sector to build a lot of new housing, including market-rate housing across the city and Mr. Mamdani's proposals are not necessarily amenable to that kind of private investment. In fact, he'd like to substitute in large part that private investment with public investment, public building projects." Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Odd Lots: The NYC Landlords Most Worried About Zohran Mamdani
Probably the most controversial proposal from New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is his promise to freeze the rent on a substantial chunk of rent-stabilized units in the city. There are concerns that this will cause a major downshift in housing development and that landlords that are heavily exposed to rent-stabilized units will be driven deeper into distress. But then separately there are major real estate owners who may be threatened by other aspects of Mamdani's real estate vision. For example, he has promised to, in some instances, expedite approvals for new buildings, which could take away the competitive edge from major building owners that know best how to work the approval process. But there are also players in the real estate industry who are excited about new opportunities. If housing production does, in fact, slow down, that could mean higher rent on market-rate units. And if Mamdani significantly expands the supply of free childcare in the city, then that could present an opportunity for some owners of commercial real estate. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with past guest Ben Carlos Thypin, a NYC landlord himself, as well as the founder of the analytics firm Quantierra. He gives us the overall lay of the land on how various players in the real estate industry are preparing for Mamdani's possible victory.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
The NYC Landlords Most Worried About Zohran Mamdani
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Probably the most controversial proposal from New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is his promise to freeze the rent on a substantial chunk of rent-stabilized units in the city. There are concerns that this will cause a major downshift in housing development and that landlords that are heavily exposed to rent-stabilized units will be driven deeper into distress. But then separately there are major real estate owners who may be threatened by other aspects of Mamdani's real estate vision. For example, he has promised to, in some instances, expedite approvals for new buildings, which could take away the competitive edge from major building owners that know best how to work the approval process. But there are also players in the real estate industry who are excited about new opportunities. If housing production does, in fact, slow down, that could mean higher rent on market-rate units. And if Mamdani significantly expands the supply of free childcare in the city, then that could present an opportunity for some owners of commercial real estate. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with past guest Ben Carlos Thypin, a NYC landlord himself, as well as the founder of the analytics firm Quantierra. He gives us the overall lay of the land on how various players in the real estate industry are preparing for Mamdani's possible victory.
The Guardian
14-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
I was on New York's rent board. Zohran Mamdani's ideas aren't pie in the sky
During the New York City mayoral primary campaign, Zohran Mamdani's proposal for a citywide rent freeze became a contentious topic. The Democratic nominee says to achieve a cap on annual rent increases for the city's 1m rent-stabilized apartments, he would appoint members to the city's rent guidelines board who support it. Critics decry a rent freeze as a pie-in-the-sky, unrealistic proposal. I served as a rent guidelines board member for nearly four years, appointed by then mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018. And it's clear this controversy isn't just about rent freezes – there's a larger agenda to deregulate rent-stabilized housing, under which rent ceilings prevent landlords from raising the rent too high and tenants must be offered renewal leases (unless the landlord shows legal reason not to). In 2023, a report revealed that half of New Yorkers couldn't afford basic needs such as housing, transportation, food and healthcare. This is the New York that I grew to know intimately before I joined the board. I'd been a tenants' rights attorney for years under the city's right-to-counsel program, representing hundreds of low-income families facing eviction who could not afford their own attorneys. Each week, I entered housing court to find my clients – families with toddlers, seniors with disabilities and food delivery drivers – anxiously awaiting possible eviction. It's not just low-income tenants at the mercy of landlords. Over the last 12 years, I've listened to thousands of stories and the one common thread is how easy it is for a moderate-income person to wind up homeless. Sudden unemployment, unexpected disability coupled with a rent increase, and now you're fighting like hell to survive housing court and not join the 350,000 homeless New Yorkers. For these New Yorkers, a rent freeze isn't some out-of-touch idea; it's a lifeline. The people who make that decision are nine board members, all appointed by the mayor – two tenant members (my former role), two landlord members and five public members whom the tenants and landlord members vie to win over to reach a majority vote. We don't rely on feelings or vibes – we're poring over reports and hours of public testimony, and engaging in spirited policy debates. In 2020, those reports revealed record unemployment spurred by the pandemic and an already high homelessness rate and rent burden (most tenants were paying 30% or more of their income on rent). Weighing that with landlord operating costs, the board voted to approve a rent freeze that year, and a partial rent freeze (for six months) the following year. In fact, the board voted for a rent freeze four times over the last 10 years under the de Blasio administration (the board votes every summer on these rent levels and they take effect in the fall). This is why criticisms of Mamdani's rent freeze ring hollow for me – it's painted as out of touch, yet there's already a precedent, backed by government reports and data. It is essential for the public to understand that there is a broader agenda behind the 'rent freezes are bad' argument. Undermining freezes is part of a larger goal to weaken rent stabilization, which landlords have consistently sought to do – and they were nearly successful recently. While I was on the board, landlords sued the rent guidelines board and all of its members (including me!) in federal court, claiming that rent stabilization amounted to an 'unconstitutional taking': if the government tells me how much I can increase my rent by and when I can terminate a lease, then the government is interfering with my private property without just compensation, the argument goes. For years, there had been whispers that New York landlords were rubbing their hands together, eager to devise ways to get such a case before the US supreme court – and this one came dangerously close. I still remember when I got the call four years after the case traveled its way up the federal appeals court chain: 'The court declined to hear the case!' Supreme court cases aren't selected in a vacuum – the court often grants certiorari , or agrees to hear a case, when there is a broad public interest, leading some parties to drum up support for their cause strategically. When I was on the board, I often heard the dichotomy of the good landlord versus the bad tenant. It's become so popular, you've probably been inundated with these stories too. 'Professional tenants' who sign a lease, then never pay rent. TikToks about tenants leaving an apartment in disarray. Squatters. Rent-stabilized tenants who are secretly wealthy, gaming the system by paying low rent. All designed to lead you to the conclusion that 'rent stabilization shouldn't exist'. You'd never know that the median household income for rent-stabilized tenants is a modest $60,000. Or that eviction rates are so high that the New York City housing court doesn't have enough judges to handle the volume of cases it sees daily. Just last year, in yet another case that landlords asked the supreme court to review, the court declined, but Justice Clarence Thomas signaled the court would be interested in hearing a rent stabilization challenge and even provided a legal roadmap for how to bring it. Landlords don't want to reform rent stabilization – they want it done away with. At the end of the day, when the goal is profit and power is unchecked, it will be profits over people. Mamdani's proposals are a threat to the real estate industry because they signal a mayorship that doesn't ascribe to the tenet that government must sit back and let the market come to its own conclusion – all while millions of New Yorkers are trying to avoid housing court. Leah Goodridge is a former member of the New York City rent guidelines board and an attorney who spent 12 years in legal services representing tenants
