Pied-à-terre, in French, literally means to put one’s “foot on ground.” In the case of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rollout of the ultra-wealthy tax plan with the francophone name, it was a case of tripping over one’s feet in what may be his biggest unforced error to date.
Mamdani’s City Hall decision to publish one big list of potentially eligible taxpayers — a list rife with errors — triggered the legal challenge that brought the entire scheme to a halt Monday evening.
Earlier this summer, City Hall published a list of thousands of property owners in New York City whom it identified as potentially eligible to be hit with the 1% pied-à-terre tax on second homes worth $5 million or more, owned by individuals who have not made it their private residence. The problem was that not everyone on the list met that criteria, or even came close to meeting it.
The list included Staten Island City Council Member Frank Morano, who enlisted former NYC Corporation Counsel Randy Mastro to file a lawsuit challenging the notification as being illegal under city law. They argued that the publication of the pied-à-terre list sparked mass confusion among property owners across the city, and that they needed more time than the Sept. 18 deadline set by the Mamdani administration for property owners to appeal their inclusion on the list.
On Monday, Staten Island Supreme Court Judge Wayne Ozzi agreed and ordered enforcement of the pied-à-terre tax halted. The judge ruled that the city has the burden of proof in determining which property owners must pay the luxury tax and should have provided individual notice, rather than a single public list, to those who meet all the qualifications to be taxed.
It’s important to note that Judge Ozzi’s ruling did not declare pied-a-terre unconstitutional or illegal in and of itself. Rather, he declared that the city broke its own law in its notification process and must change. The Mamdani administration, however, is appealing to a higher court rather than admitting it messed up the rollout and fixing it accordingly and swiftly.
Most New Yorkers won’t be required to pay the pied-à-terre tax, so one may ask why anyone should care about it. The tax is expected to generate up to $500 million in new revenue to help balance the city budget. But delaying the tax’s enforcement delays the city’s ability to collect that revenue — and that impacts us all.
New York City is already looking at a projected $8 billion budget hole to fill next year. That’s with Wall Street still thriving as the average New Yorker feels the ceaseless pinch of inflation at the gas pump, at the checkout line, and in their monthly rent and utility bills. Should things turn sour on Wall Street, the city will be in even worse financial shape. Hence, the city can’t afford delays in its revenue stream.
We don’t know what Mamdani’s City Hall was thinking when it decided that publishing its big tax list was a good idea, or what it would accomplish other than confusion, anxiety, court challenges and delay.
Time for the mayor to step up, own the mess, get it fixed quickly, and give a break to the vast majority of New York property owners.