Cuomo proposes 'Zohran's law' to protect rent-stabilized housing from the wealthy

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As part of his renewed New York City mayoral campaign, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing "Zohran's law" to prevent high-income individuals from occupying rent-stabilized apartments. The proposal is a pointed jab at his opponent, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who occupies a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, Queens. 

"Rent-stabilized apartments when they're vacant should only be rented to people who need affordable housing, not people like Zohran Mamdani," Cuomo told reporters in a video posted on social media. 

Cuomo, who resigned as governor of New York in 2021 in the face of multiple controversies, told Mamdani over the weekend that it's "time to move out." The former governor's message, posted on X along with an edited video of Mamdani admitting he pays "$2,300 for my one bedroom in Astoria," has amassed more than 33 million views. 

"You don't need to be renting rent-stabilized units to wealthy people," he continued. "Otherwise, what you are doing is you are abusing the system. I am going to propose not renting out [rent-stabilized] apartments, by law, except to a person who actually needs affordable housing. And, I'm going to call it 'Zohran's law' because it's an abuse of the system."

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Chief among Mamdani's now-infamous progressive policy proposals is his commitment to freezing rents. 

"As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent," according to Mamdani's campaign website. 

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Mamdani has accused incumbent Mayor Eric Adams of appointing Rent Guidelines Board members to raise rents on stabilized apartments. While landlords and advocates argue the freeze would be illegal, Mamdani can accomplish this goal by appointing members to the board who wouldn't vote to increase the rent. 

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio's board voted to freeze the rent three times during his tenure. 

Cuomo was the favorite to win the Democratic nomination in June. But since Mamdani's political upset and Cuomo's subsequent decision to remain in the race as an independent candidate, the former governor has ramped up his social media strategy, opting for snappy videos and punchy attack lines. 

Cuomo had previously called the democratic socialist's plan to freeze rent a "politically convenient posture," and said such a move would hurt landlords who would be "unable to maintain their buildings."

As Cuomo's fiery social media posts about Mamdani's rent-controlled apartment made the rounds, de Blasio - who has yet to endorse a candidate in the race to run the nation's most populous city - fired back at his governor. 

"I did a rent freeze and almost 2 million hard-working New Yorkers benefited. @ZohranKMamdani wants to do a rent freeze. You know who doesn't want to do a rent freeze? @andrewcuomo, and he thinks he can trick us into forgetting that," de Blasio trolled on X. 

In a prior post, Cuomo told his now more than 100,000 followers that because of Mamdani, "Somewhere last night in New York City, a single mother and her children slept at a homeless shelter," and called on him to "move out immediately and give your affordable housing back to an unhoused family who need it."

"No matter which way you cut it: Zohran Mamdani is a rich person. You are actually very rich. Yet you and your wife pay $2,300 a month, as you have bragged, for a nice apartment in Astoria. That should be housing for someone who needs it. We are in the middle of a historic affordability crisis. Millions of low income New Yorkers need this apartment and an apartment like it. Yet your apartment remains rented to rich people who don't need it," Cuomo continued. 

During a campaign event on Monday, Mamdani responded to Cuomo's freshly proposed law "that will keep the rich out of New York's affordable housing."

"What do we know about this policy proposal beyond the fact that it seeks to evict me from my apartment?" Mamdani questioned on Monday.

"Like so much of Andrew Cuomo's politics, it is characterized by a petty vindictiveness. It leaves far more questions than it has answers. How many New Yorkers would this apply to? How many New Yorkers would be evicted from their apartments? How many New Yorkers would have their lives upended by a former governor who is responding to the fact that he was handily beaten by a tenant of a rent-stabilized apartment?" Mamdani asked. 

"I live rent-free in his head," Mamdani trolled Cuomo, arguing he had many years to implement such policies as governor but is now only focused on trying to reckon with a "political defeat." 

Soon after Mamdani's criticism, the Cuomo campaign unveiled his proposal to protect rent-stabilized apartments from being occupied by high-income individuals. 

"Under Cuomo's proposal, when a rent-stabilized apartment becomes vacant, the incoming individual income would be capped so that the annual rent makes up at least 30 percent of that income. For example, if an apartment rents for $2,500 a month ($30,000 per year), the new tenant's income could not exceed $100,000," according to the plan. 

The Cuomo campaign also clarified that "Zohran's law" would only apply to vacant apartments.