Stavisky Files Freedom of Information Law Request Over Property Value 'Glitch'

UPDATE - Tuesday, April 12, 8:00 p.m.: State Sen. Toby Stavisky, D-Flushing, said she has sent a Freedom of Information Law request to the city’s Department of Finance in the wake of a “glitch” that caused higher property value assessments at co-ops and condominiums across the five boroughs.

Stavisky said an assistant commissioner with the Finance Department recently told her there were errors in the assessments that had been caused by a computer "glitch.”

This week, senator sent a FOIL request to Finance Commissioner David Frankel’s office.

“We cannot wait while the commissioner decides what information to release,” Stavisky said. “I believe, as a co-op shareholder and as an elected official, that my constituents are entitled to full disclosure.”

The property value for some co-ops and condos increased as much as 147 percent, she said. 

The increases would take effect on May 25. The City Council will hold a hearing on real property tax assessments on May 2.

The City Council will hold a public hearing on real property tax assessment increases on May 2 following a recent meeting during which the legislative body’s co-ops and condominiums caucus discussed ways to save money for shareholders.

Councilman Mark Weprin, D-Oakland Gardens, met this week with the Council’s Co-op and Condo Caucus, which includes Council members Dan Halloran, R-Whitestone, and Peter Koo, R-Flushing, to strategize how to combat the city Department of Finance’s assessments.

“It’s clear that the basis of the new calculation method is flawed and that the Department of Finance has to modify it,” Weprin said. “Saying that market values are up 50 or 150 percent flies in the face of the reality of the current real estate market.”

The legislative body will hold public hearings on the matter on May 2 in Council chambers, but a time has not yet been set.

Weprin said the city’s current system increases market values at a time when real property sales prices are flat. A number of co-op shareholders and condo owners are seniors with fixed incomes, he said.

Warren Schreiber, president of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance, said he would likely attend the Council hearings.

“Our co-ops and condos are one of the last bastions of middle class housing in New York State,” he said. “Parts of Queens have been singled out for double and triple digit increases. It’s selective taxation.”

Last month, state Sens. Tony Avella, D-Bayside, and Toby Stavisky, D-Flushing, held a rally in Bayside to protest the real property tax assessment increases.

Stavisky has since introduced legislation to reclassify co-op and condo units from class two properties, which is regarded under tax law as income-producing real estate, to a class one designation.

“We need to cap the tax on co-ops and condos at six percent,” said Schreiber, referring to the city’s tax designation for single-family homes. “It would be the fair thing to do and the right thing to do. It would ease the burden on our shareholders.”

State Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, D-Bayside, has co-sponsored Stavisky’s bill in the Legislature’s lower chamber.

In early March, Finance Commissioner David Frankel agreed to a deal to cap year-to-year assessment increases at 50 percent.