Pied-a-terre tax may be on the menu

From Crains:

If Mayor Bill de Blasio pursues the Fiscal Policy Institute’s recommendation for higher taxes on ultraluxury apartments owned by foreigners, he’ll need Albany to do it. And Sen. Brad Hoylman has just the bill.

On Monday, the institute recommended raising taxes on apartments worth more than $5 million owned by noncity residents. An annual surcharge of 0.5% to 4% would raise $665 million a year for the city. The left-leaning think tank says wealthy foreign buyers, often shielded by limited-liability corporations, have been buying up property in Manhattan as vacation homes but pay no income taxes and low property taxes thanks to exemptions and the city’s outdated tax code. It points to a report by the Independent Budget Office that found that in some of the newer residential developments in Manhattan, the portion of pieds-à-terre could approach 50%.

Mr. de Blasio, who earlier this year failed to persuade Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow him to raise taxes on wealthy city residents to pay for universal prekindergarten, says he is reviewing the proposal. But if Democrats win control of the state Senate in November, the issue could require his attention when the state legislative session begins in January.
Mr. Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat, plans to introduce a bill Tuesday that would essentially accomplish what the think tank recommended.

Ultrarich property owners from beyond New York "aren't paying income taxes, and are utilizing city services, everything from our infrastructure to our police force, and aren't contributing," said Mr. Hoylman, who noted that several such properties, including 15 Central Park West and several high-rises on 57th Street, are in his district.

"A lot of these individuals are using New York as a tax haven," he added.

The bill would "bring New York in line" with other global cities that have similar surcharges, he said, citing London as one. "This isn't viewed as punitive."

Manhattan CB2 meeting results in first amendment trampling

Dear QC :

The Manhattan CB2 meeting was to discuss LIJ installing an "urgent care center" in the former space of Saint Vincent's Hospital. The chair of the meeting (he's not the chair of CB2), Brad Hoylman, physically and forcibly yanked the microphone out of Yetta Kurland's hands, in order to silence her at last night's meeting.



In this one, cops were called out (they appear in the end), to try to silence some angry citizens at last night's meeting:



The Queens angle could be: look at how difficult it is to try to get back a hospital, after one has closed. The political machine works against us, including using intimidating and physical tactics such as calling cops and yanking microphones out of our very hands.

Thanks and respectful regards,
-- Louis

Brad Hoylman yanked the mic? You mean this guy?

Independent thought?

From City Pragmatist:

The strongest push to hobble NYC’s community boards by forcing them to hire dedicated planners and revert to a narrower “planning board” role (an idea we strongly oppose) came not from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, but from the former chairman of Manhattan Community Board 2, Brad Hoylman, who was one of five invited “experts” who spoke at the Charter Revision Commission’s June 10 session on Government Structure in Staten Island. Why the commission chose Hoylman as a featured guest became evident upon examination of his credentials.

Hoylman’s official Charter Revision Commission bio shows him only as “a senior executive and general counsel at a New York City nonprofit organization.” But a Web search reveals that the nonprofit he works for is the Partnership for New York City, the pre-eminent policy and public relations arm of New York’s big business and real estate development community and its principal advocate for a strong-mayor, weak-community form of government.

Hoylman’s co-panelists also have credentials that raise serious issues about their ability to take a fresh look at City Hall’s structure: Eric Lane, who with F.A.O. Schwarz, Jr., shaped NYC’s current strong-mayor government; Gerald Benjamin, who helped Lane to do this; Doug Muzzio, a CUNY Baruch College political affairs professor who develops and delivers “cultural diversity training programs for the New York City Police Department;” and Marc V. Shaw, a member of the city and state permanent governments since 1981 who currently works for commission chair and CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein as Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for Budget, Finance and Financial Policy.

Given Lane’s and Benjamin’s charter revision commission history, and Hoylman’s, Muzzio’s, and Shaw’s current employment, it’s evident that the commission did not cast its net very far looking for dissenting views.