Skip to content
Council Discourse

NYC Council meetings, chaptered and linked by time.

Created by Uzair Qadir

Inspired by Vikram Oberoi's City Meetings

Q&A

Chair Lee on shelter rent tax cap and development-level tax liability

New York City Council · Jul 15, 2026 · starts 0:52:07 · 1 min 1 sec

Lee asks how many Mitchell-Lama developments will reach the 5% shelter rent tax cap and how many will have lower liability. Phillips confirms all have moved to 5% and mentions J51 reauthorization as another tool.

Linda Lee

And then in terms of the tax exemption and tax liability, in 2025, the state imposed a cap, as we heard before.

Linda Lee

And the cap for each development is either 5% if it's shelter, rent, or carrying charges.

Linda Lee

Presumably, some developments will not reach the cap because the value of their tax exemption and title.

Linda Lee

relieves them to a lower tax liability.

Linda Lee

So how many Mitchell Lama developments in the city will reach the cap this year and how many will have a local tax liability less than the cap?

Adam Phillips

So every Mitchell Lama development has already moved from the 10% shelter rent tax down to the 5% shelter rent tax.

Adam Phillips

Also excited for J51 to be reauthorized because that is another tool in our toolbox if there's capital work happening to be able to lower their property tax liability.

Adam Phillips

So if we can layer in the lower 5% shelter rent tax with J51 as we're doing capital work, that's another tool that we could use to minimize the increases.

Linda Lee

Okay.