New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s upcoming “rental ripoff” hearings are facing backlash after it was revealed that residents of public housing will not be permitted to testify — despite long-standing complaints that the agency overseeing those units is among the city’s most troubled landlords.

The administration is set to hold its first public session on Feb. 26. While promoted as an opportunity for tenants to raise concerns, the hearings will be limited to disputes involving renters and landlords in privately owned buildings. The roughly 500,000 residents living in properties managed by the New York City Housing Authority will not be included in the formal testimony process.

Landlords and housing advocates criticized the city for excluding NYCHA residents while encouraging tenants in private buildings to appear and speak about alleged abuses, including so-called “rental junk fees” tied to amenities such as pet ownership.

“The city’s own tenants—those living in public housing—are demanding a real plan to improve their living conditions,” said Humberto Lopes, CEO of Gotham Housing Alliance. “It appears the Mamdani administration woke up to their own hypocrisy.

“If these hearings were truly about holding bad landlords accountable, the over 500,000 residents in NYCHA would be able to meaningfully participate,” Lopes added. “This is clearly the city trying to distract from its own failures while putting on a show, instead of having a real conversation with property owners, renters, NYCHA residents, and everyone else about how to improve housing for all.”

Following criticism, the mayor’s office revised language on its website, adding a question-and-answer section responding to: “Are these hearings for NYCHA residents too?”

“While these hearings focus on price gouging and living conditions for private-market renters, senior leadership and staff from NYCHA will be on-site to ensure that residents can submit in-apartment repair requests, file heat/hot water complaints, or discuss development-wide issues,” the updated note said.

“In the coming months, our administration will release a housing plan focused on improving housing quality for all New Yorkers, including those in public housing.”

NYCHA has repeatedly been labeled the city’s poorest-performing landlord in annual reports issued by the public advocate’s office.

In 2019, the agency was placed under federal oversight due to dangerous living conditions and controversies that included falsely certifying inspections.

Mamdani pushed back against claims that the hearings should cover public housing, arguing that his administration is pursuing multiple strategies to address housing problems citywide.

“So we are going to be approaching the housing crisis in a wide variety of ways. One of those are these rental rip off hearings,” Mamdani told reporters Sunday at an unrelated event on Coney Island.

The mayor also pointed to what he described as years of inadequate federal funding for NYCHA, noting the authority’s massive capital needs.

“We will also continue to work with NYCHA residents to ensure that they are being delivered the quality of service they’ve long been denied,” Mamdani said. “And while we know that so much of the reason that NYCHA residents are living through a system that requires around $80 billion of capital improvements. By last count, is a lack of commitment from the federal government.”

Still, Lopes and other opponents argue that limiting the hearings to private housing reflects what they see as a flawed housing agenda. Among the policies they criticize is Mamdani’s support for freezing rents on nearly one million regulated apartments through the city’s Rent Guidelines Board.

Attention has also turned to Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, who has faced scrutiny over previous remarks criticizing homeownership and advocating aggressive government intervention in the housing market.

“Impoverish the white middle class. Homeownership is racist/failed public policy,” she once said.

“Elect more communists,” Weaver also said.

According to the mayor’s website, the hearings will involve the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Department of Buildings, and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Other agencies, including NYCHA, will be present solely “to provide resources.”