Doug Apple to Serve as New Chair of Board, Reed Jordan and Alex Armlovich to Join as Members
New Appointees Bring Decades of Experience Across Government, Nonprofit and Private Sector, Focused on Ensuring New York City Remains Affordable for Working-Class Families
New York City Mayor Eric Adams today appointed Doug Apple as the new chair of the Rent Guidelines Board, along with Reed Jordan and Alex Armlovich as new members to the board. Together, the new appointees bring decades of experience across government, nonprofit, and private sectors. The new appointees reflect the Adams administration’s commitment to making New York City the best place to raise a family by protecting affordable housing and making it more accessible for working-class New Yorkers.
“To address the housing crisis head-on, we must invest in creating new, affordable housing, while protecting renters from being priced out of our city,” said Mayor Adams. “My appointees to the Rent Guidelines Board bring decades of experience in housing and urban planning across the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. Together, we remain focused on one singular mission: ensuring New York City remains an affordable place for working-class families. Our administration will continue to build housing at a record pace, hold bad, predatory actors accountable, and fight on behalf of tenants.”
“The Rent Guidelines Board has the important yet challenging task of both protecting tenants from infeasible rent increases, and ensuring rent stabilized buildings are equipped to sustain operations and be maintained as quality, affordable housing,” said New York City Executive Director for Housing Leila Bozorg. “I'm confident that Doug Apple as newly appointed chair, along with Reed Jordan and Alex Armlovich as new members, will draw on their decades of housing experience across sectors when evaluating the factors and complex decisions that come before the board each year.”
“Rent stabilized housing is an essential part of the New York City housing market, and its preservation requires delicately balancing tenant affordability while ensuring buildings have sufficient income to support operations,” said RGB Chair Apple. “I thank Mayor Adams for entrusting me with this responsibility and look forward to working closely with my fellow board members to carry out the Rent Guideline Board's mission.”
“Throughout my career, I have been committed to ensuring that New York City remains affordable and fair for all,” said RGB Member Reed Jordan. “I am honored to serve as a public member of the Rent Guidelines Board. I look forward to collaborating with the entire Board to thoroughly analyze the data and gather robust public input in order to make informed decisions that affect New Yorkers across all five boroughs.”
“As a former rent stabilized tenant, I know how much secure tenancy matters — not just financially, but emotionally, for my neighbors and friends in stabilized homes,” said RGB Member Alex Armlovich. “Having read the RGB's excellent staff reports for over a decade in my housing policy research career, I'm excited and honored to now work with the Board directly. I plan to follow the data while keeping the lived experience of New Yorkers in mind to serve all stakeholders and ensure a bright future for rent stabilized housing.”
The Adams administration had made significant investment and policy changes to empower tenants and hold bad landlords accountable. Last year, Mayor Adams announced the formation of the Tenant Protection Cabinet, an interagency effort formed to coordinate across agencies to better serve tenants by creating pathways to renter-focused programs and services, and to ensure safe and fair housing conditions. Mayor Adams has also taken strong enforcement action against landlords who do not properly maintain their properties — obtaining over $4 million and the appointment of a 7A administrator (an individual appointed by a court to operate privately-owned buildings that have conditions that are dangerous to the tenants' life, health, and safety) against a single landlord with a portfolio of buildings. This is in addition to the New York City Housing Preservation and Development’s (HPD) continued efforts to stop bad landlords through their Tenant Anti-Harassment Unit, and special enforcement programs that target buildings with the worst physical conditions from the Emergency Repair Program to the Alternative Enforcement Program. The Adams administration has taken on Source of Income discrimination by investing $2.3 million to crack down on the landlords, owners, and real estate brokers who refuse to rent to current or prospective tenants seeking to pay rent with housing assistance vouchers, subsidies, or other forms of public assistance. In August 2024, the New York City Commission on Human Rights announced a $1 million housing discrimination settlement — the largest civil rights settlement in city history — against Parkchester Preservation Management. Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, the Public Engagement Unit (PEU) also launched a live operator tenant helpline to provide immediate support to New York tenants who face potential eviction, landlord harassment, or unacceptable living conditions. New Yorkers seeking support from the PEU Tenant Helpline can call 311 and be referred to a live operator.
Since entering office, Mayor Adams has made historic investments to create and preserve affordable housing and ensure more New Yorkers have a safe, affordable place to call home. In June 2024, City Hall and the New York City Council agreed to an on-time, balanced, and fiscally-responsible $112.4 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Adopted Budget that invested $2 billion in capital funds across FY25 and FY26 to HPD and the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) capital budgets. In total, the Adams administration has committed $24.5 billion in housing capital in the current 10-year plan as the city faces a generational housing crisis. In July 2024, Mayor Adams announced back-to-back record breaking fiscal years in both creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing. Last December, Mayor Adams celebrated the passage of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing proposal in city history that will build 80,000 new homes over 15 years and invest $5 billion towards critical infrastructure updates and housing investments. Last spring, the city celebrated the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years with the Willets Point transformation.
This year, Mayor Adams is doubling down on his commitment to building more affordable housing across the five boroughs. Last month, Mayor Adams and the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced the next phase of an ambitious, bold new vision for Coney Island, Brooklyn that will deliver 1,500 new homes and invest in the reconstruction of the historic Riegelmann Boardwalk. Additionally, Mayor Adams and HPD celebrated an $82 million investment to put homeownership within reach for more New Yorkers by expanding the HomeFirst Down Payment Assistance Program. Finally, the Adams administration has advanced several bold, forward-looking projects, including reimagining
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