The number of New Yorkers who testified at public Rent Guidelines Board meetings more than doubled this year compared to last year, as Mayor Mamdani launched an initiative to get more people to turn out.
Over four meetings, about 330 people testified in person and around 700 people sent in written, video and audio testimonies, RGB Chairperson Chantella Mitchell said — totaling around 1,000. That’s in comparison to a total of 400 who testified either in person or via a submission last year, per City Hall’s numbers.
Of those who testified this year, more than 130 spoke on behalf of landlords and more than 800 on behalf of tenants.
The board voted Thursday evening to freeze rent for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized units — a huge victory for Mamdani, who made the freeze a rallying cry of his campaign.
Mamdani’s initiative, called Organize NYC, aims to keep the grassroots momentum of his campaign going by getting people to sign up for canvassing shifts across the five boroughs. It’s one of the ways the mayor, still early in his term, is bringing his movement politics into City Hall.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
Mayor Zohran Mamdani on primary election night Tuesday. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
The program, which was announced in April and is housed under the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement, was first tasked with getting people to turn out for the RGB public hearings but is expected to take on other issues, as well.
“This is a decision that will impact more than 2 million New Yorkers,” Mamdani said at the initiative’s announcement. “Last year, only 400 New Yorkers testified at these hearings. That is 0.02 percent, at best. If we want New Yorkers to believe in these processes, we must make it as easy as possible for them to be a part of these processes. And that is why we need to get the word out to as many New Yorkers as we can.”
Spokespeople for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The board’s vote for a rent freeze is likely to bring lawsuits from landlord groups, who have already asserted that Mamdani has compromised the independent board.
Amid concerns that the initiative was being improperly used to execute Mamdani’s political will, both the mayor and his Office of Mass Engagement commissioner, Tascha Van Auken, have stressed the effort was intended to spur civic engagement broadly and that volunteers would not advocate for the rent freeze.