Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York (SPONY), said, “From the start of his mayoral campaign, Mamdani put a target on the backs of property owners. Small owners are the backbone of the city’s affordable housing stock. We are part of the solution, not the problem, yet he ignores our frontline experience when planning the future of housing. Mamdani repeatedly doubles down on making us the villains, using political stunts like ‘rental rip-off hearings’ and using City Administration officials to go door-to-door to organize tenants while on the taxpayer dime. They are not tenant organizers, they’re city officials who represent all New Yorkers – including thousands of small owners. The rental rip-off hearings process was no more independent and objective than last month’s Mamdani-appointed Rent Guidelines Board delivering the rent freeze that the Mayor demanded. These hearings were political theater to make a case against us. The findings were decided before the hearings concluded, just as the rent freeze was predetermined as we learned from the board member who resigned because of the rigged process. Mamdani’s housing agenda is stacked against us. His rent freeze sets us up for failure. The rents are frozen, but our operating costs and expenses – insurance, utilities, energy, repairs, labor – continue to skyrocket. Many rent-stabilized buildings are already at the edge of the economic cliff, and when our buildings fall into disrepair because of his policies, Mamdani will illegally take private buildings from mom-and-pop, immigrant, multi-generational owners and convert them into socialized housing or give them to his hand-picked nonprofit housing providers. Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax is another nail in the coffin. Creating fear and financial pressure on modest, multi-generational owners, who have poured their life savings, sweat equity and heart and soul into their properties, will destroy the fabric of neighborhoods. His list is a database that proves he is targeting property ownership as a whole. No one is safe.” #