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New York

Pied-à-terre owners don’t deserve a free ride: OPINION

Advocates for tax say non-residents' homes also take advantage of key city services

Brad Hoylman and a pied-à-terre unit at 781 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side
Brad Hoylman and a pied-à-terre unit at 781 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side

Although advocates for the New York City’s proposed pied-à-terre tax on $5 million-plus units argue that non-city residents cost the city very little, all apartments take advantage of major city services, according to an opinion piece in the New York Observer.

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The Observer’s Kim Velsey wrote that the investments of the wealthy non-city residents with pieds-à-terre are protected by civil services that maintain a “peaceful civil society.” She said the affluent investors buy real estate in the city out of economic self-interest, not benevolence.

“Certainly these buildings benefit from our uniformed agencies—police, fire, sanitation—and they use the city’s infrastructure, the subways and parks and cultural institutions,” State Senator Brad Hoylman, who is set to introduce the controversial bill in Albany, told the newspaper. Real estate insiders and tax policy experts have said that the tax might have a chilling impact on the market, as The Real Deal reported. [NYO] — Mark Maurer

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Pied-à-terre