A landlord rep on the city’s Rent Guidelines Board resigned just hours before the group is scheduled to vote on a rent freeze.
Christina Smyth, the board’s sole landlord representative, sent out a scathing letter of resignation to the group Thursday morning, claiming it had “stopped being a fact-finding body”, The New York Daily News first reported.
“This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze. Everything since has been theater,” she wrote.
Smyth, a real estate attorney and law firm owner, slammed Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s hand-picked board — of which he appointed six of the nine members — for turning a blind eye to rising building and insurance costs for landlords.
“I asked why the data showing rising costs and falling net income was not reflected in the board’s direction to its members. Those questions went unanswered,” she said.
A signature promise of Hizzoner’s mayoral campaign was to “Freeze the Rent” on the city’s rent-stabilized housing stock.
“This year’s RGB order was decided last year on the campaign trail,” she wrote, adding, “This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze.”