Mamdani Has Learned Nothing from Rent-Control History

In November 1992, a group of residential landlords in New York City met to organize a “full-fledged campaign” to repeal the city’s rent-control and rent-stabilization laws. They said the laws, implemented during World War II, were “buying votes on the backs of property owners.”

“Rent control puts an unfair burden on the small landlord,” said Lee Sterling, then director of the American Property Rights Association, at the meeting in downtown Brooklyn. He complained that the rent laws were damaging because “the big landlords can benefit from tax abatements and tax exemptions that the little guys cannot receive.” But his concerns were ignored, and rent control stayed in place.