Mayor Zohran Mamdani will forge ahead with his controversial pied-a-terre tax rollout – despite a judge ordering the city to go back to the drawing board and essentially start from scratch.
Mamdani brushed off the ruling made in Staten Island Supreme Court Tuesday – which City Hall immediately said it would appeal — at an unrelated Brooklyn press conference Wednesday.
“I fully believe that this law is constitutional, and we are moving to intervene in these suits because of that belief, and our commitment to standing alongside our partners in Albany to defend the surcharge,” Hizzoner told reporters, when pressed on the ruling.
Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi ruled that the city would have to restart its process notifying owners of luxury second homes in the Big Apple that they’re on the hook for the surcharge – claiming the initial rollout was both “arbitrary” and “capricious.”
If upheld, the ruling would pushback City Hall’s current deadline of Oct. 6 for homeowners hit with the charge to appeal their notices.
Property Tax Attorney Benjamin Williams of Rosenberg and Estis, PC said he’s telling his clients to continue filing their appeals or registrations for the tax until the city gives out more information on the ruling.
“Owners should not assume the ruling gives them more time or that the tax is going away. Until there is clear direction from the court or the city, the best course is to protect your rights and meet the filing deadline,” he said in a statement to The Post.
Ozzi also ruled the city would have to disclose the records it was using to determine which homeowners were subject to the charge – which applies to homes valued over $5 million and co-ops valued over $1 million.
The ruling came after the city blasted out 17,000 threatening letters to homeowners claiming they’d have to pay the levy – only to find out later that roughly 1,200 of the notices were sent to owners who were later found to be exempt from the charge. More than 6,700 more had filed for exemptions.
The city’s Department of Finance, the agency overseeing the rollout, hired an additional 24 staff members immediately following the botched unveiling of the tax. The agency received additional backlash for publishing the names and addresses of 900,000 city homeowners on a public database – which Ozzi ordered removed from the web.
Mamdani said the tax was “about fairness” when pressed by reporters Wednesday.
“It’s a tax about ensuring that those who own a luxury second home in our city pay their fair share towards making sure that our streets are safer, our schools are stronger, that our city is in fact the greatest city in the world,” he said.
