Co-op Residents Bring Tax Revolt to City Hall Steps

A day before a scheduled City Council hearing on , residents joined elected officials Sunday to rally at the front door of the center of city government to demand relief.

Around 100 co-op shareholders from buildings like Le Havre in Whitestone, Deepdale Gardens in Little Neck and Flushing's Cryder Point attended the afternoon rally on the steps of a City Hall many blamed for what they called an "unfair" targeting of middle class homeowners.

At the heart of many of the complaints was the acknowledgement by city Department of Finance commissioner David Frankel of a "glitch" that caused property tax assessments for co-op buildings in Queens to increase by as much as 147 percent over last year.

"They basically picked numbers out of a hat that had no relevance to what the market value of our homes are," said Steven Young, a resident of Le Havre representing the co-op's board at the rally.

The rally was the latest in a string of demonstrations organized by co-op board presidents and a bi-partisan array of state and city elected representatives. However, with the final tax figures scheduled to be released on May 25, the case for administrative or legislative relief for co-op and condo buildings is taking on a new urgency.

In Albany, both state Sens. Toby Stavisky, D-Flushing, and Tony Avella, D-Bayside, introduced legislation to reclassify co-ops and condos into the same property tax class as single- and multi-family homes. A similar measure has also been proposed in the state Assembly.

It was unclear whether those bills would be passed in time to head off the most painful of the tax assessment increases, however.

Much of the ire of those present at Sunday's rally was directed at Frankel, who is expected to be in the hot seat at Monday's hearing. At many points during Sunday's rally, residents yelled out statements such as, "Impeach Frankel" and "Throw the bum out."

That anger was reflected by almost all of the statements made by elected officials at the City Hall gathering.

"The failure of the [city Department of Finance] to recognize its mistakes for three months, only to ultimately blame all of its failures on a computer glitch, is simply unacceptable," said Assemblyman Edward Braunstein. "It's time for DOF to abandon its effort to balance the city's budget on the backs of co-op owners in Queens."