A Revolt Over Property Taxes Is Brewing in New York City Council’s Black Caucus

There’s thunder on the left for Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Opposition is brewing in the liberal-leaning City Council to Hizzoner’s threat to raise taxes on New York City property owners unless Albany lawmakers approve a statewide tax boost. Feature today’s response by members of the council’s Black Caucus, who are up in arms over the “disproportionate harm” the mayor’s tax hike could have on “Black homeowners and working class families.”The alarm by 15 members of the Black Caucus, a substantial bloc within the 51-member council, is a reminder that hostility to higher taxes transcends the typical divisions between right and left. The council members stress that Mr. Mamdani’s tax proposal comes at a time when New York’s “Black homeowners already face rising costs,” like higher insurance and maintenance expenses, not to mention “inflation driven increases in everyday necessities.” The council members emphasize, too, that they represent “communities that have historically faced systemic disinvestment and economic inequities,” making a potential 9.5 percent increase in property taxes all the more damaging. The council members mark the hard-won gains that black New Yorkers have made in joining the homeowning ranks, writing in a statement today about “a long fought pathway toward economic equity.”For black New Yorkers, per the caucus, “homeownership is not just about property,” but a point of pride. Hence the concern that “a significant increase” in property taxes “risks accelerating displacement and undermining decades of progress.” The mayor, by “adding an additional financial burden” on black homeowners, “could force families to make impossible choices, including leaving the neighborhoods and the city they helped build.”The Black Caucus members speak of the urgency of “action to protect our communities” and their “responsibility to the residents we serve.” Welcome to the fight, we say. The spirited response by these council members speaks to the fact that black New Yorkers are far from a liberal monolith, politically speaking. It recalls, too, that the leaders and activists who seem to be ascendant in today’s Democratic Party have strayed to the left of their own constituents.Could the Black Caucus’ hostility to Hizzoner’s tax hike spell trouble for the plan’s legislative prospects? The council speaker, Julie Menin, and the chairwoman of the body’s finance committee, Linda Lee, have already said that “significant property tax increases should not be on the table.” This is especially true, Ms. Menin and Ms. Lee assert, “at a time when New Yorkers are already grappling with an affordability crisis.”The council’s minority leader, David Carr, who is among but six Republicans in the city’s legislature, tells us that the Black Caucus’ opposition suggests the “bipartisan opposition to raising property taxes.” He traces this to the fact that a tax hike “hurts so many” New Yorkers “across all Five Boroughs and different communities.” Mr. Carr rates “the likelihood of a property tax rate increase” as “nonexistent at this point,” adding, “and that’s as it should be.”

A Revolt Over Property Taxes Is Brewing in New York City Council’s Black Caucus

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