Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his property tax reform plan is imminent. New Yorkers have heard that before.
Earlier this week, the administration released its preliminary budget, which included raising property taxes in the city by 9.5 percent in order to cover a $5 billion shortfall — a move Mamdani said he’d only tap as a “tool of very last resort” and one Gov. Kathy Hochul doesn’t seem inclined to support.
Alongside the budget, Mamdani also indicated he planned to float a proposal to reform the city’s property tax system to New York State legislators in the next few weeks, echoing a promise former Mayor Eric Adams made almost exactly a year ago.
Adams, who campaigned, in part, on reforming property taxes, told a state senator on Tin Cup Day last year that his administration was working on its own reform proposals. That plan never materialized.
Now Mamdani is reiterating his earlier vows to take up the mantle with Albany. His budget director, Sherif Soliman, said on Tuesday that those reforms would be based on the de Blasio administration’s property tax commission’s 2021 report and would likely include scrapping limits on increasing assessed values and assessing co-ops and condos using a sales-based market value instead of rentals.
That timeline and framework for reform, though vague, could be an indication that his administration is closer than its predecessors to actually changing the tax system, yet they appear to be falling back on the same excuse that has largely kept reform at bay.
“New York City doesn’t need Albany’s permission to fix the property tax system,” Martha Stark, policy director for Tax Equity Now New York, said in a statement. Stark’s organization, also known as TENNY, is in the midst of a decade-long lawsuit against the city over alleged inequities in the system.
Property tax reform is New York’s hot potato. Mayors punt the issue to their successors, arguing the power to change the system rests with Albany. Meanwhile state lawmakers say the only way to greenlight reform is if a plan is championed by the mayor.
The back-and-forth is one of the reasons reform has remained elusive, though Stark’s group has pushed back against previous administrations’ positions that the city doesn’t have the authority to make meaningful changes. While the system is established under state law, TENNY has argued that the city has control over how properties are assessed and could amend assessment methods that have led to the alleged overtaxation of homeowners in lower-income neighborhoods.
A Court of Appeals judge essentially agreed with TENNY in 2024 when it opted to revive some of the organization’s claims against the city and dismissed others involving the state.
“The Court of Appeals made it clear that the City has the authority and legal obligation to assess properties uniformly,” Stark said in the statement. “A lawful system can start today. The law is clear, and every day that uniform assessments are delayed, New Yorkers pay the price.”
What we’re thinking about: The Alexander brothers’ federal trial resumes next week, with disgraced brokers Tal and Oren Alexander and their brother, Alon, facing 12 charges related to sex trafficking. I’ll be back in the courtroom with my colleague, Katherine Kallergis, on Tuesday. What do you want to know about the trial so far? Send thoughts to sheridan.wall@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: In Montreal, sanitation workers use a snow vacuum to clean up streets after a storm — a machine New York City officials attempted to use decades ago but couldn’t due to the amount of trash buried in snow piles, according to Gothamist. The Canadian city also has a snow removal budget of more than $200 million, which is more than double the average amount spent in New York over the past five years.
Elsewhere…
— Speaking of snow, New York City and the surrounding area, including Long Island, Westchester and parts of Connecticut, could be on tap for more on Sunday. The amount of snow forecast differs between reports — Gothamist projected three to five inches, while Newsday estimated as much as six to 10 inches.
— The roughly 4,000 nurses still on strike in New York City agreed to a tentative deal with New York Presbyterian and Columbia hospitals, ending a nearly six-week-long strike, according to the New York Times. The agreement follows another reached with nurses at the Mount Sinai hospital system last week.
Closing time
Residential: The top residential deal recorded Friday was $19.8 million for 200 East 75th Street, 12A. The Lenox Hill condo is 6,100 square feet. Compass’ Alexa Lambert, Susan Wires and Marc Achilles have the listing.
Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $10.5 million for 3 East 9th Street. The Greenwich Village apartment is five stories and 8,200 square feet. The Corcoran Group’s Steve Gold and William McLarnon have the listing.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $10 million for 10 Gracie Square, Unit 3/4C. The Upper East Side co-op is 5,200 square feet. Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building permits filed were for a proposed 41,400-square-foot, seven-story building at 87 Havemeyer Street in Williamsburg. Kao-Hwa Lee Architects is the applicant of record.
— Joseph Jungermann
