A New York judge has cleared landlords to obtain written communications between Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office and the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, two weeks before a rent freeze takes effect for roughly a million rent-stabilized apartments.
State Supreme Court Justice Brendan Lantry authorized limited discovery covering messages exchanged between the mayor’s office and board personnel from January 1 through the board’s June 25 vote.
Communications internal to City Hall, and those internal to the board, are excluded.
The order comes in a lawsuit landlords filed in July arguing the board’s vote was, in their words, a “sham process with a predetermined outcome” engineered to deliver on Mamdani’s campaign promise to freeze rents. The board is formally independent of the mayor.
Randy Mastro, an attorney for the landlords, said: “We are gratified by the judge’s decision, and this targeted discovery goes to the heart of our position that this was a sham process with a predetermined outcome.”
City Hall spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said, “The Law Department will continue to vigorously defend the Rent Guidelines Board.”
A board member who dissented from the freeze said, “I observed no interference by the administration in individual members’ decisions.”
The freeze is due to take effect October 1.
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