Man-of-the-people Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing agency couldn’t name a single time it has ever rejected a rent increase for 42,000 of the Big Apple’s most affordable apartments — as tenants at a Bronx complex now face hikes as high as 30%.
While Hizzoner’s Rent Guidelines Board delivered a freeze for approximately one million rent-stabilized apartments, his Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) officials admitted that it had already approved five hikes this year for the city’s middle-class Mitchell-Lama housing program.
The agency also greenlit a whopping 37 rent increases last year under former Mayor Eric Adams.
The 1950s-era statewide program provides privately owned rental and co-op housing for moderate- and middle-income families that is overseen by HPD in the Big Apple.
Unlike rent-stabilized apartments, Mitchell-Lama units have no cap on how much rent can rise.
“I don’t have that knowledge off the top of my head,” HPD Deputy Commissioner Adam Phillips said when pressed on whether the agency had ever flat-out rejected a hike.
The commissioner attempted to downplay the rent bumps by arguing that HPD had, at times, “modified” the increases by finding ways to cut a building’s expenses.
As The Post previously reported, tenants at the Bronx-based Tracey Towers Mitchell-Lama complex were blindsided by the proposal to raise their rents by over 30% over the next four years.
Rent would hike 15% next year for Tracey Towers tenants, who pay an average of $1,344 for a 1-bedroom and $1,680 for a 2-bedroom apartment.
HPD said they are powerless due to state law, which requires the building to remain solvent or risk foreclosure.
Tracey is over three years behind on its mortgage, and according to HPD’s testimony, the wider Mitchell-Lama portfolio is $47.5 million in overdue property taxes.
But HPD also couldn’t cough up basic answers about the finances of the Mitchell-Lama program during the fiery hearing.
“That is basic information,” Speaker Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) snapped after officials admitted they did not have a citywide financial review of the program — despite the council requesting it three weeks earlier.
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Later, Bronx Councilman Eric Dinowitz pressed HPD officials on how security costs at the affordable complexes spiked by nearly 50% in two years — ballooning to $2.8 million.
Philips admitted that it was “quite a large increase” and that the agency is now bringing in a management firm to explain the cost.
“You’re doing this after the rent increase was already proposed,” Dinowitz shot back.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
