When landlords in New York City were upset about a rent freeze endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, they sued in a Staten Island court.
When homeowners objected to the rollout of the second home tax, a group decided to file a suit in that borough saying the effort had been mishandled.
And when opponents of Mr. Mamdani wanted to challenge the mayor’s powers to dissolve a charter revision commission created by his predecessor, they also chose Staten Island, the only borough Mr. Mamdani lost last year, as one of the venues to file a lawsuit.
For Randy Mastro, a lawyer in all three suits and a critic of Mr. Mamdani, residents of Staten Island are just as affected as other New Yorkers by these policies, making it a legitimate place to file the cases.
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But on Friday, a judge granted the mayor’s request to move the rent freeze case to Manhattan, giving Mr. Mamdani a partial victory in the challenge to a central piece of his agenda. The judge, Ralph J. Porzio, agreed with the city government that while homes in Staten Island will be affected by the rent freeze, the decision was made in Manhattan by the Rent Guidelines Board, and should be decided in a court there.
Staten Island, a bastion of conservatism in the city, is the only borough Mr. Mamdani lost in last year’s election. Earlier this month, he was booed during an appearance there. It’s also the borough with the highest proportion of people who own their homes across New York City. And there are few people, relative to its size, who rent. All those factors could have created a more favorable environment for the rent freeze lawsuit.
Despite the setback, Mr. Mastro argued that the ruling would not affect the outcome of the case.
“No matter where this case is heard, we should prevail on the merits because the evidence is overwhelming that the Board failed to comply with its statutory mandate and manipulated and ignored its own data,” Mr. Mastro said.
Leah Reiss, a lawyer for the city, argued in court on Friday that less than one percent of the rent stabilized units in the city are in Staten Island, a “disproportionately small impact.”
Mr. Mastro opposed the move.
“Staten Island may be smaller in population than the other boroughs in our city, but it is every bit as important, and it is just as affected by this decision as any other borough,” he told the judge.
Justice Porzio’s decision marks the most recent development in the series of legal challenges that have been waged against parts of Mr. Mamdani’s new policies.
During last year’s mayoral election, Mr. Mamdani’s campaign promise to “freeze the rent” in rent-stabilized housing became a major rallying cry for his supporters, representing his focus on affordability for tenants. But it also drew the ire of landlords and some housing experts, who said the slogan irresponsibly downplayed the deteriorating economic conditions in many rent-stabilized buildings.
In February, Mr. Mamdani appointed six of the nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board, which is an independent body that decides annually how much rents should go up in rent-stabilized homes. At the end of June, the board delivered the freeze, halting rent increases on both one- and two-year leases for the first time in its nearly 60-year history.
Pro-landlord advocates immediately decried the board’s vote as a sham. On July 22, several landlords sued, saying the board had improperly ignored landlords’ financial challenges when it approved the freeze and relied on “manipulated” data.
In court papers, the landlords said the board focused only on affordability for tenants “to the exclusion of every cost and income factor the statute requires it to consider and arrived at an outcome that no prior board ever reached.”
The lawsuit is essentially asking the court to declare that the freeze was illegal and make the board start the process over again.
The board and city lawyers have argued that the board acted properly when it approved the freeze, a move that “appropriately recognizes that most tenants simply cannot absorb higher rents while most landlords can manage a rent freeze,” according to court papers.
Joe Borelli, a former Republican councilman turned lobbyist from Staten Island, said strategizing where to file a lawsuit — referred to as forum shopping — is “the tactic that the left has done against President Trump,” and other Republican administrations across the country.
He said the lawsuits filed in Staten Island against Mr. Mamdani’s policies are “entirely appropriate.”
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