The Daily Dirt: Mamdani's most crucial issue

"A few days after Assembly member Zohran Rent Freeze Mamdani won the Democratic primary, which I called a crushing defeat for real estate, I wrote a column listing a few ways he could help the industry. Among them were rezoning to add housing, weakening member deference in the City Council, supporting the City Charter revisions, adding rental vouchers and making them easier to use, increasing staff to ease bottlenecks at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and persuading Albany to reform property taxes."

"The last of these, property taxes, is the most important. The New York Apartment Association calculated that taxes this year will rise about $100 per apartment in rent-stabilized buildings because their tentative assessed values increased 2.75 percent. That means tenants in these apartments will send almost $4,000 a year to the government, as the group's CEO, Kenny Burgos, said in a podcast."

"Of course, it's owners, not tenants, who pay the taxes, but the NYAA phrases it differently because it's the only hope of getting the state legislature to reduce multifamily tax rates. It will take a lot more than that to move Albany, though. Property tax reform will never happen without a hard push from a popular mayor. The time for mayors to ask for big changes from the state is immediately after taking office, when they have political capital from winning (aka a mandate)."

Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary and endorsed rezoning to add housing, weakening member deference in City Council, expanding rental vouchers and easing their use, increasing Department of Housing Preservation and Development staff to reduce bottlenecks, and persuading Albany to reform property taxes. Property tax reform is the most important because tentative assessed values rose 2.75 percent, increasing taxes about $100 per rent-stabilized apartment and effectively transferring almost $4,000 annually per apartment to government coffers. Owners legally pay property taxes, but advocacy groups frame the burden as borne by tenants to pressure state lawmakers. Comprehensive property tax proposals are scheduled by the end of Mamdani's second year, delaying potential state action until at least 2028 and risking the loss of political capital needed to secure change.

Read at therealdeal.com