NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli Pen Op-ed to Implore Albany to Reform City’s Broken Property Tax system

New York, NY – In a joint op-ed published today in The New York Daily News, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli joined forces to make the case that Albany must prioritize comprehensive city property tax reform for the upcoming 2023 legislative session.

“Fixing this broken system is no easy task. Change will require collaboration between the powers that be up in Albany — the governor and the Legislature — as well as those who run the city — the mayor and the City Council. Different entities eye each other suspiciously. It’s viewed as a political third rail. That’s why we are working together, a Staten Island homeowner and a Park Slope homeowner, a conservative Republican and a progressive Democrat, to help build a coalition for change,” Lander and Borelli write.

Read the full op-ed here.

New York City’s property tax system has long put an undue burden on middle- and working-class homeowners and discriminates against residents of majority-minority neighborhoods by taxing homeowners in Manhattan, waterfront Queens, and brownstone Brooklyn at lower effective rates than those in in Staten Island, Northeast Bronx and Southeast Queens. New York City’s outdated code also taxes new rental development at nearly double the rate of condo buildings – leading to multi-billion-dollar tax giveaways like 421a to overcompensate for this unequal tax treatment.

In the wake of the June 15 expiration of the 421-a tax abatement, Comptroller Lander convened a broad coalition of bipartisan elected officials and housing advocates to push for comprehensive tax reform. Among those in attendance was Minority Leader Borelli who joked at the time that tax reform is such an important goal it even brought together the “Abbott and Costello duo of Lander and Borelli.”

Now, as State lawmakers begin to reconvene and set their agenda for the upcoming legislative session, the unlikely duo is back to ask the Governor, the State Legislature, the Mayor, and City Council to work together to bring tax fairness to New York City.

“If the two of us can get together behind it, we know they can, too.”

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