In one of his first acts as mayor, Zohran Mamdani announced that he planned to hold a series of “rental rip-off” hearings so tenants could complain about abusive landlords and “expose the ugly underbelly” of New York City. It was a pledge very much in line with the type of populist rhetoric that helped get him elected.
After weeks of anticipation from tenants and apprehension from landlords, the first of the hearings is set to take place in Brooklyn on Thursday evening. But despite the name, they seem designed to be somewhat sedate affairs.
The hearings will not feature people speaking into a microphone, to cheers or jeers from an audience. Instead, hundreds of tenants who register ahead of time will get three-minute, one-on-one conversations with a city official to lodge their complaints.
There will be a resource fair providing information about housing policies and code enforcement. The hearings will also feature a “visioning board,” where renters can look at different housing proposals and paste stickers next to what they like or don’t like.
In April, after hearings have been held in all five boroughs, the city will compile tenants’ testimony. It expects to “publish a report proposing policy interventions” within 90 days, according to a news release.
Jaren Forbes, 38, a Bedford-Stuyvesant renter, plans to testify on Thursday about leaky windows and an unresponsive 311 system.
“It’s a starting point,” Mr. Forbes said. “It’s the best starting point they’ve ever put out there.”
Cea Weaver, who runs the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, said the city had considered a more traditional hearing format — the kind that Ms. Weaver, who was a housing activist before joining the Mamdani administration, might have used to build energy for pro-tenant policies.
But, she said, officials ultimately decided on something more intimate and direct.
“As somebody who has turned out lots of people to lots of public hearings over the years, it doesn’t always feel like you’re making an impact when you do that,” Ms. Weaver said.
Mr. Mamdani, who is not expected to attend this week’s event, announced the hearings just days after taking office in January, underscoring the seriousness with which he views the city’s housing crisis.
He will in some ways be threading a tricky needle.
The hearings and their provocative title build on his campaign image as a champion of tenants and cater to a left-leaning base that delivered him a commanding victory in November.
At the same time, Mr. Mamdani has drawn fire from landlords and their advocates, who have predicted the hearings would amount to theatrics and would be a distraction from governing.
Many older buildings are deteriorating, with owners facing rising expenses for maintenance, insurance and more.
Landlords point out that the rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments that Mr. Mamdani supports — and the property tax increase he has more recently floated — could add to those expenses.
“The real rental rip-off in housing is a system that pulls rent money away from repairs and building operations through excessive taxes and unfunded mandates,” Kenny Burgos, the chief executive of the New York Apartment Association, a landlord trade group, said on Wednesday. “Blaming owners without reform will only harm tenants and the remaining affordable housing stock.”
Mr. Mamdani and other city officials have cautiously acknowledged some of the landlords’ complaints. Dina Levy, his housing commissioner, has conceded that rising expenses are hurting landlords, and said that the city should do more to help them.
But Ms. Weaver said she disagreed with the idea that the city should avoid holding events that seek “feedback on one of the largest things that the city does.”
“Under our administration, the mayor is on the side of tenants,” she said.
Critics of the mayor have also noted that the hearings are intended to solicit testimony from people living in privately owned apartments, when residents of public housing endure some of the worst living conditions.
Ms. Weaver said officials with the New York City Housing Authority, which runs the public housing system, would be at the event to speak with residents.
While the hearings may surface new ideas or complaints, there are existing ways for city residents to alert officials to problems in their homes, including by submitting complaints directly to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development or through 311.
The Housing Department and the Buildings Department, which will both have officials at the hearings, respond to such complaints every day. But there is broad agreement among renters, landlords and city officials that the system can fall short.
It may be expensive to reform it, and Mr. Mamdani is already grappling with a budget deficit that is limiting his ambitions. His other housing priorities, including subsidizing the construction of new affordable housing and financing the rehabilitation of older buildings, will also be costly.
Ultimately, the hearings will serve at least one goal important to the mayor, Ms. Weaver said: bringing New Yorkers into city government.
She said each attendee would be given a letter that affirms renters’ rights to organize tenant associations. Those letters can then be passed on to landlords, Ms. Weaver said.
“The best housing enforcement system doesn’t involve the city at all,” she said.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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