Tag Archives: Mayor Mamdani

Mamdani’s Property Tax Hike Proposal

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ABC News interviewed me in New York Mayor Mamdani’s Property Tax Hike Proposal Puts Pressure on Taxing Millionaires. It reads, in part,

David Reiss, a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, told ABC News that it was inevitable that Mamdani’s progressive policies would be met with initial resistance by moderates in a highly contested election year, but the debate over taxation will be one that resonates across the country as affordability takes center stage at the ballot box.

“I have no doubt this will be a flashpoint for national elections and state and local elections as well,” Reiss said.

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A Political Game of Chicken Not Limited to NYC

Reiss, who used to chair New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board, told ABC News that taxation has always been the big factor in elections, with Republicans previously running on a stance of no new taxes on Americans.

This year’s election season will be different, he noted, given Mamdani’s rise to national prominence, as well as that of progressive candidates who have been championing policies to help Americans make ends meet, such as improved child care and rent relief.

“You will see people say, ‘We want to increase revenues to support progressive issues,'” Reiss said.

Reiss said that Mamdani is “planting the flag” in a manner that is important to him and his supporters by making a property tax hike warning a part of his negotiations with the City Council and Albany.

Reiss further said that dangling a worst-case scenario this early puts the conversation on affordability and government fiscal priorities front and center, instead of it being buried under other issues that will surface as election season kicks off.

“You’re seeing a very popular mayor to use the bully pulpit for some change with a politically middle-of-the-road state government,” he said. “It really is a political game of chicken.”

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Reiss noted that the public push for more cost relief has seen leaders become more open to considering progressive policies.

Since Mamdani won the mayoral election, Hochul has been more open to some of his proposals to help New Yorkers, including expanding state funding for child care options for children aged two and older.

On Monday, the governor, whom Mamdani has endorsed, announced that the state would invest $1.5 billion in the city over the next two years for various services and programs, such as public health and youth services.

“It seems from a political perspective a logical strategy for a popular mayor to take, but it’s not without its risks,” Reiss said.

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Lawmakers across the country are facing growing calls from their constituents to address income inequality and the wealth gap, Reiss said, noting a proposed wealth tax in California on billionaires that has prompted some corporations threaten to leave the state.

“It’s the lightning rod, and it sets the terms of the debate,” Reiss said of Mamdani’s budget negotiation proposal. “But we’ll see if it compels other partners in government to go along or to resist it.”

Mamdani’s First 50 Days: Housing Edition

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By Dmitryshein, CC BY-SA 4.0

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani

I was interviewed for AMNewYork’s story, Mamdani’s First 50 Days. It reads, in part,

For Professor David Reiss, a Cornell University housing expert and former chair of the Rent Guidelines Board, the mayor’s housing orientation so far is unmistakably pro-tenant, but it also underscores deeper challenges.

“He’s clearly pro-tenant,” Reiss said, noting Mamdani’s rhetoric, appointments, and actions such as launching his rental rip-off hearings and the revival of the Mayor’s office to protect tenants. But he cautioned that short-term policies aimed at controlling tenants’ costs must also account for the long-term viability of the housing stock.

“Are you pro-tenants five years, 10 years, 15 years down the line?” Reiss asked, pointing to the risk that buildings with constrained revenue might struggle to cover unavoidable expenses like property tax, insurance, and mortgage payments without meaningful engagement.

Reiss traced much of this pressure to state rent restrictions, which eliminated several mechanisms that previously allowed landlords to raise rents between tenancies. Under current conditions, he said, the annual RGB adjustments are often the only permissible rent increases, which, in recent years, have been modest in the view of landlord groups.

If rents are capped or frozen, his view is that the city will have very few tools to ensure financial stability without subsidies or cost reductions — whether direct (financial support) or indirect (tax relief or reduced operating costs).

“You have very few tools,” he said. “They usually involve somehow reducing costs directly or indirectly, or increasing income by subsidizing,” Reiss said that any meaningful approach will have to consider how the city allocates limited funds, especially in the face of a budget gap that has already pushed the administration to consider rainy day funds and reserve drawdowns elsewhere.

That tension between immediate affordability and long-range health of the housing stock frames much of the current policy conversation. Reiss said the rent freeze itself — assuming it survives legal and procedural hurdles — would represent a significant political success if delivered, given that it was a core campaign pledge. But he stressed that a broader housing strategy must also ensure that rent-regulated buildings can cover ongoing costs without descending into default or neglect.

“Success for the Mamdani administration,” Reiss said, “is to thread the needle between his expressed statement of reducing rent increases or rent freeze on the one hand, but ensuring that the housing stock has enough income to support itself — not just for this year, but for three years, five years, seven years down the line.”