Fuming homeowners and real estate industry members testified Tuesday that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s botched rollout of the new pied-à-terre tax left them flailing for answers.
Roughly 30 homeowners packed a three-hour City Council oversight hearing where pols had hoped to grill administration officials, only to have City Hall skip the session entirely. Robert Bertagna, an Upper East Side retiree who has lived in his home for 30 years, recounted receiving a notice from the city Department of Finance alerting him he’d be on the hook for $52,000 annually under the surcharge unless he successfully applied for an exemption.
“This is my primary residence. I pay taxes in New York. I vote in New York. My driver’s license in New York. There’s plenty of records to establish the fact that I’m a resident of New York,” he told the council.
“This is a clear intrusion by our government, intimidation by our government and, frankly, a direct attack and a target on private wealth,” he said. “I filed an exemption, but that’s not the point. The point is the government is assuming that I’m guilty unless I can prove myself to be innocent.”
Even supporters of the tax, which targets only luxury second homes in New York City, argued the rollout by Mamdani administration officials was confusing and raised thorny questions. New Yorker Kyle Braff testified that a friend who purchased a brownstone 40 years ago recently called him to ask whether the tax would apply to him, especially because the property is likely now worth over the levy’s $5 million cutoff.
“He’s concerned now because he kept his brownstone here so that he can keep in touch with his kids and his grandkids, whether or not he’ll be subject to the pied-à-terre,” Braff said about his buddy, who retired down south to stretch out his savings and for the weather.
“I want to be clear that any legislation that’s proposed to hold the wealthy accountable to their fair share is a good thing,” he also said, adding the rollout has been “unclear.”
The pied-à-terre tax applies to one- to three-family homes worth at least $5 million and co-ops and condominiums valued at $1 million or more that are unoccupied, non-primary residences, under the law approved by state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul in the spring. But representatives of co-op groups warned the process for them was punitive, as the DOF will be sending the surcharge bill directly to cooperative boards or corporations, not individual shareholders.
“The smaller the building, the larger the portion of the non-residents’ tax that each resident shareholder will have to find a way to pay,” said Mary Ann Rothman, executive director of the Council of York Cooperatives and Condominiums. “Where is the justice and jeopardizing the financial stability of a cooperative in this way?”
The hearing drew competing rallies beforehand from supporters and skeptics alike, even as City Hall officials were no-shows, blaming the ongoing high-profile lawsuit seeking to halt the rollout. DOF Director Richard Lee, who submitted written testimony in lieu of taking tough questions, defended the launch, arguing the 17,000 notices that went out to homeowners simply informed them they could be hit with the levy.
“Property owners who believe their property should not be subject to the surcharge have an opportunity to submit proof the property is used as a primary residence,” his statement said.
But Kenneth Fishel, a longtime Upper East Side resident who just joined the lawsuit by homeowners aggrieved by the tax rollout, contended he only found out about his notice by accident. His neighbor, who lives nearly 30 stories below him, received the notice instead, he said.
“My apartment number was listed on it, and it said that I didn’t live in that apartment and that I owed $58,000 for non-primary residence tax,” Fishel, who testified at the hearing, told The Post after.
“If I hadn’t run into him in the elevator, I never would have known, and I would have been billed for the full tax.”
A not-so-ragtag group of nearly 20 real estate agents also gathered on City Hall’s steps ahead of the hearing, holding signs declaring “Guilty until proven resident” and “Dox you very much.” Jason Haber, president of the New York Residential Agent Continuum, railed against the administration’s public release of a tax roll of 900,000 properties that could fall under the levy, saying it amounted to mass doxxing.
“Today we’re here to say we are in the dox days of August,” he said. “That is a gift to every scammer, fraudster, or person with bad intent out there.”
Lee, the finance honcho, said the city publishes tax rolls each year and that it was required under the law.
The city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter sarcastically scoffed that “those who claim mansions or luxury condos as their primary residences” are complaining about uploading proof of residency to a city website.
“But, as anyone who has ever received unemployment insurance or SNAP benefits would know, working class New Yorkers have to do a lot more than prove residency in order to receive basic public benefits,” the group posted on X. “So why all this fuss over uploading a PDF?
“It’s because the oligarch class doesn’t feel any obligation to the city that they play in, even though it’s working New Yorkers’ city to live in. So today and every day, we’ll keep fighting for the pied-à-terre tax and for more taxes on the rich to fund a dignified life for all.”
Jennifer Goodman, a spokesperson for Hochul, declined to weigh in on whether or not City Hall needed to pause the rollout. Hochul’s reps argued the law includes tools for the city to directly enforce collections from co-op unit owners. They referred The Post to the governor’s comments last week distancing herself from the “tax the rich” scheme she gave to Mamdani in this year’s state budget negotiations.
“We’re not responsible for the rollout,” Hochul said.
“We just were their — we are the facilitators.”
In the viral moment that sparked the backlash, the Mamdani administration in late July published a supplemental property roll covering roughly 900,000 properties and mailed notices to approximately 17,000 homeowners warning they could face the surcharge. The rollout was temporarily blocked by Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi on August 10 after homeowners Rachel O’Brien, Carmine Morano and Simon Hedley sued, arguing the city illegally shifted the burden to residents to prove exempt status instead of making individualized initial determinations. The city filed an appeal, and an appellate court lifted the temporary restraining order on August 13, allowing the rollout to resume while the legal battle continues. Oral arguments are scheduled for August 31.
The homeowners are expected back in court on August 31 when they will seek permanent relief from the original judge.