Arpit Gupta, the sole dissenting member of New York City's Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), has voiced concerns that Mayor Zohran Mamdani's rent freeze policy, affecting approximately 1 million rent-stabilized apartments from October 1, 2026, to September 30, 2027, could lead to the gradual deterioration of older buildings. Gupta, an associate finance professor, explained that withholding necessary revenue for capital improvements and potentially impacting landlords' ability to cover essential costs like mortgages and taxes could result in deferred maintenance and long-term building distress. This freeze, which could leave landlords waiting until late September 2029 to increase rents in some cases, is viewed by Gupta as an inefficient approach to the affordability crisis, suggesting targeted aid to tenants instead of a blanket freeze that may disproportionately affect older properties while failing to address market-rate housing affordability.