Eric Adams Fights Legal Challenge to NYC’s ‘Unfair’ Property Tax
Hodgson Russ Senior Associate Henry Zomerfeld was quoted in an article detailing New York City's property tax system which is often blamed for exacerbating the city’s housing crisis and perpetuating segregated neighborhoods. In 2021, Eric Adams vowed to break years of bureaucratic inertia and fix the problem.
“Billionaires are not paying their share of taxes, and this is an unfair system and we’re going to fairly look at it,” Adams said a month before winning a competitive Democratic primary. “Within the first year, we’re going to come up with a real resolution to finally resolve this issue.”
By almost any measure, the 40-year-old law has created a mess. Nearly identical homes in different neighborhoods can have dramatically different tax rates. Glitzy Manhattan condos and Brooklyn brownstones often face lower effective tax rates than properties in the Bronx or Queens. Renters unwittingly shoulder the cost of relatively higher tax burdens on apartment buildings.
Yet three years later, Adams’ administration not only hasn’t proposed any fixes, it’s fighting a lawsuit aimed at correcting the imbalances he decried.
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