Faced with Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s continued resistance to raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, Mayor Zohran Mamdani will push for an increase in property taxes instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mayor is expected to present this alternative during his preliminary budget address later Tuesday at City Hall, floating something that hasn\u2019t been done since Mayor Michael Bloomberg.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have a big gap to fill, and he\u2019s put a pretty extreme option on the table, which is a combination of raising property taxes and taking money from reserves and relying on some pretty aggressive revenue projections to boot,\u201d Comptroller Mark Levine said Tuesday morning, after he was briefed on the plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gov. Hochul, though, told reporters <\/a>at an unrelated event Tuesday that she did not \u201cthink a property tax increase is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n She has repeatedly said she would not raise taxes on the wealthy this year.<\/p>\n On Monday, she announced an increased $1.5 billion in state money to help fill that gap, including more than $500 million in recurring funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis investment protects services and puts the city on stable financial footing,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n Mamdani campaigned on reforming the city\u2019s complex property tax system, which is more than 40 years old and favors single-family homes and owners of luxury condos while burdening multi-family buildings, which then pass on tax costs to tenants.<\/p>\n Homeowners in predominantly Black neighborhoods also pay property tax rates that can double homeowners in primarily white neighborhoods.<\/p>\n The disparity \u2013 and many stalled attempts to reform it \u2013 was highlighted by Mamdani in his inauguration speech<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBecause no matter what you eat, what language you speak, how you pray, or where you come from \u2014 the words that most define us are the two we all share: New Yorkers,\u201d he said on Jan. 1. \u201cAnd it will be New Yorkers who reform a long-broken property tax system.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, Mamdani\u2019s budget director, Sherif Soliman, said the city planned to introduce a property tax reform legislation \u201cin a matter of weeks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The city had been projected to face a $12 billion budget gap over two fiscal years, which the mayor blamed<\/a> on former Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.<\/p>\n During his appeal to state lawmakers in Albany last week, he said that gap had shrunk by $5 billion, thanks to Wall Street bonuses, some cuts and $1 billion from the city\u2019s reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n