A member of the NYC Rent Guidelines Board resigned hours before the board was scheduled to vote on Mayor Mamdani’s promise of a rent freeze for stabilized tenants, saying the panel’s work had become corrupted as it pursued a preordained political outcome.

Christina Smyth, a landlord representative on the board reappointed by ex-Mayor Adams at the end of his term, said she stepped down from the board because it had “stopped being a fact-finding body” as it looked to enact Mamdani’s signature freeze. The board is widely expected to approve a freeze at tonight’s meeting.

“This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze,” she wrote in her three-page resignation letter. “Everything since has been theater. The hearings, the reports, the public comment, the data. None of it was ever going to change the result.”

Mamdani made his promise of a four-year pause on rent hikes for the city’s one million rent-stabilized apartments a rallying cry on the campaign trail last year. In February, Mamdani named six members to the nine-person panel.

The mayor of late, though, has been less explicit in public statements in the face of concerns about improperly influencing the board’s decision-making. Although the members of the board are appointed by the mayor, it is supposed to function as an independent body.

In the event they vote for a freeze Thursday evening, legal challenges from landlord groups almost certainly will follow.

“There may be some legal challenges taken up by owners aggrieved by the way this process has played out,” Smyth told the Daily News. “If so I will do everything I can to assist them in being successful.”

In her resignation letter, Smyth argued a rent hike is necessary because, per the board’s data, operating costs have risen faster than inflation and insurance and property tax costs are higher, as well as the costs of water and fuel. The board’s research also shows that landlord incomes have risen across the city for three years in a row — a fact that tenant groups have stressed as proof a freeze is needed.

Smyth in her letter also asked Gov. Hochul to restore the vacancy bonus — a done-away-with provision in state rent laws that allowed landlords to hike the rent for stabilized units when a unit became vacant.

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not immediately comment on the resignation.

Smyth’s resignation will not impact the logistics of the board’s vote set for Thursday evening, attorney and strategist Louis Cholden Brown told the Daily News.

“This would not impact the legality of the vote, as the board will still have a quorum, and we’re all presuming the board will adopt the freeze with substantial support,” Cholden Brown said, noting that the vote would skew even more heavily toward a freeze with now just one remaining landlord representative on the board.

When the board voted to keep the rent freeze on the table by approving ranges that included a 0% increase. Smyth was the lone “no” vote. The other landlord representative on the board, Maksim Wynn, abstained. Wynn was appointed by Mamdani.

Ann Korchak, president of the Small Property Owners of New York, said in a statement that the group was “deeply concerned” that the vote will now be held without the “only meaningful voice” representing landlords.

“More disturbing is the reason for her resignation. If the vote is already predetermined by the majority Mamdani-appointed RGB, then this independent board would be acting illegally by injecting political influence into its objective decision on rent adjustments,” Korchak added.

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