Eric Adams Loses Rent Guidelines Board Appointee

Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to stack the Rent Guidelines Board have hit a snag.

Lliam Finn, a senior financial advisor with Merrill Lynch, has decided against serving as a public representative on the board less than two weeks after Adams appointed him, three sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed to The Real Deal Wednesday. This gives the mayor less than 12 hours to find a replacement appointment before he leaves office. It is unclear if he will be able to do so.

A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately comment. Finn did not return a message seeking more information.

Adams this month announced the appointment of two new members to the board, Finn and Sagar Sharma, an attorney with Legal Services NYC’s housing unit, as a tenant representative.

He also reappointed landlord attorney Christina Smyth as an owner representative and Arpit Gupta as a public one.

The last-minute appointments were viewed by some as an attempt to sabotage Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s campaign pledge to freeze rents for stabilized tenants for four years. The city’s Rent Guidelines Board decides what rent increases are permitted on one- and two-year leases, though mayors have influenced their decisions.

The appointments meant that most of the board’s members in Mamdani’s first year would be Adams’ appointees. He can replace four members (the chair, as well as members whose terms are expired that represent the public, owners and tenants) when he takes office. He can replace the other five in 2027.

If Adams doesn’t replace Finn, Mamdani would then have five potential appointees in his first year in office, meaning that he might have an easier time convincing the board of a rent freeze. However, the board is supposed to be an independent body, and a rent freeze could lead to a legal challenge from landlords.