Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis pledged Monday to freeze property taxes in her first year in office and then impose a cap of 2 percent or less for the remainder of her term.
“You have to respect the taxpayers,” the Staten Island assemblywoman said outside Panepinto Bakery in Middle Village, Queens. “They are not ATM machines.”
Ripping Mayor de Blasio, she added, “You can’t continue to go back to them year after year, and within 3 1/2 years ask them to increase the property taxes 28 percent. It’s unconscionable. I will not do that.”
Even though the city has not increased the property tax rate during de Blasio’s tenure, it keeps collecting more from the tax each year as assessments increase.
Booming neighborhoods such as Park Slope — where de Blasio owns two homes — are the biggest beneficiaries of the convoluted property tax system because there are caps on how much the city can collect as values soar.
De Blasio said in his first year at City Hall — 2014 — that reforming the system would be a priority and his administration would “look at it very closely.”
But in July the mayor said he’d save a reform push for a second term if he’s re-elected.
Malliotakis was joined by dozens of supporters including former Gov. George Pataki.
He attended a GOP rally where he also endorsed fellow Republican Robert Holden, who is trying to unseat Democratic City Council member Elizabeth Crowley.