The city is giving a break to landlords who house hipsters in trendy white neighborhoods — at the expense of struggling minorities — despite a court order to nix the inequity, a housing group says.
Landlords in the city’s wealthier areas and hipster havens are still getting away with paying less than their fair share of taxes because the Big Apple is dragging its feet when it comes to overhauling its tax assessment ratio, a formula that helps determine a property owner’s taxes, says a coalition of homeowners, renters and civil-rights advocates.
The group, Tax Equity Now New York, won a landmark ruling against the city in March when it argued the Big Apple’s current assessment ratio was discriminating against minorities in poor neighborhoods by unfairly jacking up their property values for tax purposes, leaving them to unfairly shoulder the burden.
The city still has yet to fix the system as it was supposed to, says the group — which filed a new motion in Manhattan court last week to push the issue.
“We are flabbergasted and disappointed that the city has not lowered the assessment ratio for homeowners in New York City to ensure uniformity despite the Court of Appeals decision that the city’s assessments are not lawful,” said Martha Stark, TENNY’s policy director, in a statement.
TENNY’s lawyers are arguing in their new motion that the city’s tentative 2025/2026 assessment roll still assesses properties at higher values in lower-economic areas such as Jamaica in Queens and the South Bronx when compared to similar sites in predominantly white upscale neighborhoods such as Park Slope in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
“Areas of New York City, which have historically appreciated at lower rates — which generally have lower valued homes and where minority groups disproportionately live — are dramatically overassessed and overtaxed,” argues the TENNY motion filed Thursday.
Stark said the unequal property-tax system adds to the city’s affordability crisis.
“Despite the City’s expressed desire to make the city more affordable for hardworking homeowners and renters, they are ignoring their ability to do just that in the area where they have the most control: the property tax,” Stark said.
But a City Hall rep claimed that implementing a new property tax system would make it difficult to fund city services.
“TENNY’s position would harm the very taxpayers they claim they are trying to protect — particularly working-class New Yorkers — and create negative fiscal impacts that would jeopardize the city’s ability to provide crucial services,” the representative said in a statement after the motion was filed.
Either way, TENNY lawyers want the courts to sort out the issue by Feb. 20, the date the New York City Charter requires the Big Apple to notify property owners if their assessment has increased for the year and by how much.
The group insists the implication of the court ruling was to fix the inequity by the time the new tax bills went out.
TENNY is arguing that if a judgment is not issued before that date, the current system will break the law, relying on an improper assessment for hundreds of thousands of homeowners.
Stark told The Post that city officials have told TENNY they want state legislation to fix the unfair system — a response she said is ridiculous.
“They have had since March of last year to comply with the ruling, and they have not, and the only thing that we kind of get back from them is we want to get state legislation,” Stark said. That’s basically what they say, even though the court has made clear that they have the power to do this.”
The City Hall rep only reiterated the local government’s desire to work on a legislative solve.
“The Adams administration is committed to working toward reform with our legislative partners to create a fairer and more equitable property tax system that considers the needs of every New Yorker,” the representative said in a statement.
Still, the city may fight TENNYs latest motion, reigniting a seven-year long legal battle.
A City Hall source told The Post the Adams administration disagrees with TENNY lawyers’ take on the ruling that the city was given an “unequivocal directive” to change its assessment ratio.
