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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Some state lawmakers in New York state introduced legislation that would eliminate the property tax breaks for Columbia and NYU. Why? This year alone, the two private universities collectively saved $327 million on what would have been property taxes if they were in the for-profit sector. That number, according to the New York Times, $327 million in property tax exemptions between the two universities, lawmakers, some of them at least, and we're going to talk to one, think those million should be redistributed to the City University of New York, CUNY, which is facing proposed budget cuts with what's going on at the city and state level.

These lawmakers characterize NYU and Columbia as not just universities fulfilling their nonprofit educational mission but as among the city's biggest landlords. Joining us now to discuss this recently introduced bill, it's his bill, Zohran Mamdani, state assemblymember from District 36 in Queens. Assemblymember Mamdani, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you for coming on.

Zohran Mamdani: Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Start at the beginning. Explain this idea.

Zohran Mamdani: At a time when New Yorkers public universities are being subjected to yearly budget cuts and only have 8% of buildings in good repair, Columbia and NYU, as you said, two of the largest property holders in New York City, are exempted from paying property taxes. I, many of my colleagues, and many New Yorkers believe that it's time these institutions pay their debt to the working class of New York City.

Brian Lehrer: There are other private universities in New York City or elsewhere in New York State, why single out Columbia and NYU?

Zohran Mamdani: This legislation applies to Columbia and NYU because it states that the threshold for paying your property taxes is if you have more than $100 million in them on an annual basis. When we look at New York City, private universities receive property tax exemptions at a cost of about $659 million. Columbia and NYU account for nearly half at more than $320 million. Really, it's the scale that we're talking about where Columbia is the number one private property holder receiving property tax exemptions in New York City.

NYU is in the top 10.

These are institutions whose scale of land ownership has meant that their primary purpose in this moment is not just education. It's now progressed into property accumulation and management.

Brian Lehrer: Are you saying that we should think of NYU and Columbia as landlords out to make money on renting to people, rather than that they use all this land that they have and therefore a lot of property and a lot of property tax to be exempt from for their educational missions of teaching and research? Are you saying we should think of them like any other landlord? Do they rent to people whose rentals have nothing to do with their relationship to the university, like faculty members or students?

Zohran Mamdani: I can't speak to each individual tenant relationship that Columbia has, but I do think you're right that we have to understand these two universities as having responsibilities and actions that go beyond the way that they advertise themselves. I mean, Columbia owns at least 274 properties in New York City. NYU owns at least 148. If you compare that to other universities, the next in line in property tax exemptions in New York City is Fordham, and they only own 13 properties.

I think we have to understand that this was written into our state's constitution with an original intention of providing relief to institutions of higher education. They would never have thought at that time that this exemption would apply to the top private property holder in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: I read, though, and correct me if I've got this wrong, that the universities already pay property taxes for anything that isn't for educational purposes. Is that accurate?

Zohran Mamdani: Not to my understanding, but I would say that the $320 million that we are talking about, the more than $320 million, that is with regards to properties that they hold and do not pay any tax on at this time.

Brian Lehrer: A Columbia spokesperson told The New York Times that Columbia is a driver of the city's economy through not only its research and employing teachers but also its capital projects, "including $100 million in upgrades to local infrastructure since 2009." NYU similarly says it "contributes to the city's well-being and its economy." Ending tax exemptions, they say, would make them reconsider a lot of their moves. Columbia argues they wouldn't be as competitive as they are now or be contributing to infrastructure as much as they are. How do you respond?

Zohran Mamdani: If you take the example of what Columbia told The Times, that they gave $100 million since 2009 in capital investments, that is but a fraction of what they actually owe. On an annual basis, Columbia owes the city of New York at least $179 million. If from 2009 up until this point, we're talking about 14 years and they've only paid $100 million and each year should be 179, it shows just how much of a drop in the bucket their so-called charitable contributions are, and how good of a deal some of the wealthiest institutions in this country are getting, all at a time when we are being told that there is not enough money to pay for working-class New Yorkers' basic needs.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your phone calls for New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens on this in particular or other New York State Legislature issues, 212-433-WNYC. Do you like the idea of starting to charge property taxes to Columbia and NYU as educational, not-for-profits, they are exempt from property taxes, but you're hearing the arguments for why those two becoming among the biggest property owners in New York City and exempt from the taxes that other big property owners in the commercial sector would pay, that they should be levied those taxes?

Do you like the idea? Do you have a question about the idea or other topics for Assemblyman Mamdani? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text. He wants to redistribute that $327 million in property taxes that would then be collected to public higher education, particularly CUNY. Let's talk about the CUNY side of the equation now. Assemblyman Mayor Adams has proposed a 3% cut, if I've got my numbers right, to the funding that the city provides to CUNY, gets a lot of other money from the state, but it would be a 3% cut from the part that the city contributes to CUNY. Can you tell us what you see as at risk if CUNY loses that funding?

Zohran Mamdani: I think what's at risk is the very idea of a quality education for New Yorkers who've been priced out of it at so many other institutions. Mayor Adams has proposed these outrageous cuts at a time when only 8% of CUNY's buildings are in a state of good repair, at a time when 300 faculty and staff positions have been eliminated when we are seeing budget cut after budget cut that would threaten financial aid, mental health counseling, academic career advising, and decreasing the number of faculty at large.

I think we have to understand that when you cut CUNY, you're cutting New York because CUNY is a representation of our city when we see the fact that more than 80% of freshmen in CUNY attended New York City public schools, and more than 100,000 undergraduates are coming from families that earn less than $30,000 a year.

Brian Lehrer: We have a lot of phone calls coming in on this. Let's see where we're going to start. We're going to start with Charlotte in Jersey City. Even though she's in Jersey, she can see Lower Manhattan from there, right across from Lower Manhattan. Charlotte, you're on WNYC with Assemblymember Mamdani. Hello.

Charlotte: Hi. I go into New York a lot. My brother-in-law, just to say, he's an adjunct professor at NYU, and he calls it NY screw. I go to the Angelika Cinema, and there's a huge building that NYU has just put up, and on the fences around it when it was under construction, big things saying educational labs, new student whatever, but if you looked at the picture you saw, there's a giant apartment building going up above these floors, but no mention of that on any of the billboards. Sure enough, now there's luxury apartment condos right above the educational labs, et cetera, but talk about false advertising.

Brian Lehrer: Are you saying that NYU owns those luxury condos and is selling them, or renting them, or that they work with a private developer, and that's a different thing above the educational rooms?

Charlotte: Honestly, I'm not quite sure. It's been a few years since I looked at the fences, but there are apartments above there, and the implication of the advertising is that the building was going to be totally for NYU's education of their students, but it is, obviously, not.

Brian Lehrer: Charlotte, thank you very much. I'm not sure what building she's talking about or what the exact situation is there with how any of the space is going to be used, but does this ring a bell enough that you can use it as an example as Charlotte is trying to, as fuzzing the line between what's an educational use and what's not?

Zohran Mamdani: I think it speaks to the fact that these two institutions have opened massive pieces of infrastructure across their campuses. If you think about Columbia, they recently finished a business school at the cost of $500 million in Manhattanville, part of a $6 billion expansion into Upper Manhattan. NYU opened a $1.3 billion building at 181 Mercer Street. With both of these institutions, there's often this idea that the city is their campus.

I think people had understood that as being like, "Oh, this institution is embedded in the fabric of our city," but what it's in fact come to look like over these past few years is that these institutions are remaking the city into their literal campus. That has meant taking over neighborhoods and making them expansion projects of institutions that we had previously understood as being much more limited in their scope.

Brian Lehrer: I think the next call that Jack in Manhattan wants you to go even further in looking at not-for-profits that own massive amounts of property that they're not taxed on. Jack in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. Hello.

Jack: Hi. Years ago when I was an undergraduate at CUNY, we did a research on an article for the New York Times about the largest landowner in New York City, which was the Catholic Church, and how they weren't paying taxes, of course, because they're religious institutions. It's not just churches, which you can understand are not taxable, but they own buildings and corporate entities and huge amounts of money, which they don't pay taxes on, which would probably fund the whole city.

The question is, why aren't they having a bill to tax the Catholic Church's assets, which would bring in a lot more money than Columbia and NYU? The principle is the same, that these non-profits are ripping off the city when they do make profits and have huge amounts of land.

Brian Lehrer: If they've got huge amounts of land being the through line here between those two categories, the educational and the religious, assemblyman, what do you say?

Zohran Mamdani: No, I think there's certainly a conversation to be had around property tax exemptions in general, but this legislation focuses exclusively on private universities. Part of the reason for that focus is because of the absurd contrast of the hoarding of wealth between institutions of higher education like Columbia and NYU and the same mission at CUNY that actually serves working-class New Yorkers but is meanwhile being starved on an annual basis.

Brian Lehrer: The Catholic Church, in particular, the caller says, own so much land that you can't just say, or that he wouldn't say is just for religious purposes, that they should be looked at specifically like you're looking specifically at NYU and Columbia in the educational sector. Why not?

Zohran Mamdani: I don't know as much about the scale of the Catholic Church's landholding within New York City, but I would say that when we looked at an analysis even broadening out from thinking about Columbia and NYU first, we would find Columbia as the number one private property holder receiving property tax exemptions. I think that these two institutions are operating at this kind of a scale. I will look more into what the caller is bringing up with regards to the Catholic Church, but I don't have that knowledge coming into this.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon in Harlem as a neighbor of Columbia wants to weigh in on that part of it. Sharon, you're on WNYC. Hello?

Sharon: Yes, good morning. Thank you so much. My name is Sharon and I represent New York Interfaith Commission for Housing Equality. We've been talking about this very issue of Columbia acquiring land in Harlem. The thing that they're doing is we're noticing that Columbia is putting forth this mixed-use development program approved in 2008 by the Empire State Development Corporation. Basically what they're doing is the program includes the acquisition of 200,000 square feet of land from uptown for 25 years, totaling 5 to 6 million square feet, which would include access to eminent domain.

Based on Columbia University's education mixed-use development program, the objective is to repopulate or annihilate the annihilation of West Harlem and Washington Heights in partnership with New York State through the state of New York and the Columbia University. We have been looking at this issue. We are rallying people in those areas to educate them about it, but more importantly, this thing was put into play under Pataki and this has been going on. That's why Columbia is acquiring this. They're saying the reason why they're doing this is because they're looking for student housing.

That is not true because what we are finding, when they do acquire these pieces of land, when they hoard the land for many years before they do any development on it, and see what your guest is talking about, not only repopulation, but basically they're building a whole community around Columbia University, and it's not necessarily for student housing, and it's making it hard for small businesses to be in the area. It is annihilating the communities, especially in Washington Heights and West Harlem.

I say it's coming across 125th Street, going from Harlem, coming from Morningside, going west as far as Second Avenue. We are watching this thing unfold, and the commission is working on-- we want to look at legislation, things that can be done, appealing to our governor, as well as our mayor because I know he's doing what he's doing on his side, but this is not-- Columbia's put in a face and said "for student housing". It is not what's happening.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon, thank you very much for your call. We appreciate it. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org at a couple of minutes before eleven o'clock as we continue for another few minutes with New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens, who is sponsoring a bill to remove the property tax exemption from NYU and Columbia.

Those two non-profit educational institutions only because they have grown to be two of the biggest property holders in New York City and wants the 327 million in property taxes that they would pay to be redistributed to public higher education, specifically to CUNY. Here's some pushback coming. One listener says-- pushback listener writes, "Sounds like a money grab from two wonderful not-for-profit organizations, simply because they have grown large. It seems intellectually dishonest to strip successful universities of this benefit and not other smaller, less successful universities." More pushback, then I'll let you respond to both. Jeff in Long Island City, you're on WNYC. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff: Hi. Good morning, Brian, and good morning, State Assemblyman. I have two points. One, if you want to tax the universities, that's fine, but to then say you want to specifically direct that money that they would pay in taxes to CUNY, in my opinion, is class warfare and is exactly why people tend to not like Democrats and liberals because it sounds like a nice idea, but you're really engaging in class warfare. If you want to tax them, tax them and put the money in the general pot and have it go to everyone and everything, but to specifically target them for then other purposes, no matter how altruistic you want to dress it up as, you're engaging in class warfare. Most people don't like class warfare.

The other point I'll put is that I used to live in Chicago, specifically Chicago's Hyde Park. For those that aren't aware, Chicago's South Side, as a whole, is infamously very economically depressed except for Hyde Park. The reason why Hyde Park, among many others, or maybe chief among them, is that the University of Chicago, another world-class institution is based there and probably owns the vast majority of Hyde Park. I don't know if the University of Chicago does or doesn't pay property tax, but what I can tell you is that Hyde Park is an island of beauty, as it were, among really a sea of largely economically depressed and challenged areas.

I'm sure the good residents of Hyde Park are very happy that it's at least a very wonderful neighborhood and has a world-class institution, so just a different perspective on the whole idea.

Brian Lehrer: Jeff, thank you very much. Of course, we don't know how a lot of the lower-income residents of Chicago feel about that enclave, but that's a Chicago story that I don't know anything about. Assemblyman, I don't know if you do on that comparison, but what about his larger point and the texters’ larger point?

Zohran Mamdani: I think that this previous caller speaks exactly to the issue at hand which is that we cannot allow for islands of prosperity amidst larger neighborhoods of crisis and austerity. The necessity of this legislation is because of that very reality for so many New Yorkers, whether they are in Morningside Heights and in Harlem or they're in downtown Manhattan around NYU’s primary property holdings. To the suggestion that this proposal itself is class warfare, I would say that the reality is class warfare because the reality is that you have these institutions which use the symbolism of the city to burnish their reputations as they enroll fewer and fewer New Yorkers.

Columbia alone in the last 12 years, the share of students that came out of New York City into Columbia went from a quarter to 15%. Meanwhile, New Yorkers at large are being served by CUNY. This is the importance of us finally asking these institutions to repair their relationship with the city with its working-class residents because whether we're talking about the University of Chicago or whether we're talking about Columbia, NYU, it is this reality we're seeing with elite universities across the country where they have prospered at the expense of the welfare of the neighbors that make those very neighborhoods what they are.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go even further down that road because a few people have proposed to me recently that we talk about an idea that's on some people's agendas of abolishing private college altogether. I know that's going to be an outrageous thought to a lot of people and a new thought to a lot of people, but there are some corners of politics where people ask that question. Given the vast inequalities in our society, should we have private school at all at this point at the university level, and some kids getting to learn in luxury while others who go to CUNY and elsewhere have fewer resources?

Zohran Mamdani: I think the final point of what you're saying is that we deserve universal quality, higher education. I wouldn't extend this piece of legislation to go on to suggest that there's no room or role for private universities, but I think that when those universities' profits are built off of them playing by a different set of rules than they should be at the expense of working-class students, then I think we need to repeal those kinds of exemptions. I wouldn't go as far as to say that every single private university should not only have the exemption to repeal but that they should, in and of themselves, be abolished.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one more call and this, I guess, is a former colleague of yours, it's former Assemblyman Tom Abinanti calling from Westchester. Tom, you're on WNYC with Assemblyman Mamdani. Hello.

Assemblyman Tom Abinanti: Yes, I am. Good morning and good morning, Assemblymember. I think the Assemblymember raises some issues that need to be looked, at and that is, how was our property tax system constructed. I twice passed legislation to set up a commission of interested people to look at the entire property class system. It came out of something in Westchester where we had a large piece of property, a large building staffed with a private company, and then Montefiore bought it, and went off the tax rolls.

It may not seem like a lot of money, but it took $500,000 out of the property taxes off the Village of Tarrytown and the school district there. For that area, that was a lot of money. I passed a piece of legislation to set up a commission, the governor never set up the commission, and we had to extend it, so we passed that. Assemblymember Mamdani voted for the legislation to renew that commission and the governor still hasn't set it up.

I personally, a disclaimer, I went to NYU Law School, I thought it was an excellent school. I don't like the idea of targeting just two institutions. I think we ought to take a look at the whole property system completely and say-- you’ve heard somebody talking about the Catholic Church, we talk about Montefiore, yes, it's a hospital, but should its back office be off the tax rolls? There's lots of questions like this, and I would love to see some of the incumbent assemblymembers press the governor and the speaker, appoint your people to this commission, give them a one-year deadline, and let them come back with an answer as to what we should be doing, and that might solve the problem with NYU and Columbia and some of the other places that are benefiting by these tax breaks.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. You're saying that a law was already passed that required the governor to set up the commission to investigate this in a big way, and the commission was never set up. Is that what you're saying?

Assemblyman Tom: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Assemblyman Mamdani, maybe that's another way to go.

Zohran Mamdani: It's nice to hear from Tom. I would say that there is a necessity of implementing the law as is passed and this governor and previous governors have taken very lightly to those laws and taken them sometimes as suggestions. I think also, too often in Albany, we make ourselves content with studies and investigations, and while we do need to get a full comprehensive analysis, and I agree with it, which is why I voted for it, I also think that the urgency of this moment requires us to propose tangible immediate actions.

What we are talking about here is that the information that we have is sufficient enough to say that Columbia and NYU are two of the largest private property holders in New York City. They do not pay a dollar in property taxes on these properties, and this is all at a time when public goods are being stripped for parts. It's critical that we both push the governor in implementing that which has already been passed, and also push forward and propose ideas such as these, which is part and parcel of our campaign titled The Repair Campaign, repealing egregious property accumulation and investing it right.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Tom Abinanti, thank you very much for calling in. We just have a few minutes left, and I want to touch very briefly on your involvement in the Middle East situation. Yes, we're going to talk about the Middle East just for a few minutes, so we're not going to solve anything here. We spoke about it at some length with Congressman Gregory Meeks of Queens who was on earlier who's the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I see that you are part of a group that started a hunger strike two weeks ago for a ceasefire. Are you still on a hunger strike?

Zohran Mamdani: I'm not on a hunger strike at this time. We planned and completed a five-day hunger strike in Washington DC in front of the White House, calling on President Biden to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Meeks said the reason he's not calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire is that it seems like it's one way. All the pressure is being put on Israel, people aren't calling on Hamas with similar protests and demonstrations, and in your case, hunger strikes, to release the hostages and put down its weapons and stop firing rockets into Israel. Why isn't the ceasefire call a unified call to both sides to pledge to stop being combatants, that would make Israel feel safe, they say?

Zohran Mamdani: A ceasefire is a legal and precise term that requires the cessation of hostilities from all sides that are involved, so Congressman Meeks is incorrect in his framing of what that call is. Now, in his speaking to the fact that there are not large-scale protests directed at Hamas that are taking place in New York City or calling on President Biden, that also speaks to a misunderstanding of the political reality which is that the United States does not support Hamas, the United States does not send billions of dollars to Hamas, the United States’s leverage over Hamas is very different than that over Israel, a country that we have sent 22,000 bombs to over the last two months with each of those bombs being dropped by Israel on to Gaza.

It does not understand the fact that it is our country that is facilitating this bombing, it is our country that is also facilitating the starvation which is why we went on a hunger strike to illustrate the fact that for all of the Palestinians, the more than 18,000 that have been killed by Israel over the last two months, there are more Palestinians who will die from starvation in the months to come because of the fact that in the words of the IDF the focus of this initiative has been on damage, not on precision.

Brian Lehrer: The supporters of Israel would say it seems like, even though they would get your point, that you're talking as an American aiming at US policy, but the message that seems to be sent is you're more serious about getting Israel to stop its fighting than getting Hamas to stop it.

Zohran Mamdani: What I'm serious about is stopping the violence. Right now, in this moment, when we see bombs raining down on Palestinians, I think it makes sense that some of the louder calls be on the country that is dropping those bombs, all within the larger context, where we are saying that a ceasefire is for the benefit of all people, because you cannot bomb your way to peace. That's one of the more frustrating things about hearing so many of these congresspeople come forward and speak with such certainty about the necessity of moving forward on a path of violence, is that they have said the same message to us with Iraq, with Afghanistan, with so many foreign wars, and look at where we are in each of those countries.

Here, in this moment, when we call for a ceasefire, we call for it for Palestinians, for Israelis, we call for it for the hostages, because we've also seen that when you do not have a ceasefire, you can have situations such as the one that happened a few days ago, where the IDF tragically and horrifically killed three Israeli hostages, assuming them to be Palestinians.

Brian Lehrer: Last question on this, would you say to Hamas, with as much fervency, "Stop embedding among civilians and putting them in harm's way?"

Zohran Mamdani: I would tell Hamas that they should stop killing civilians, that they should stop with horrific attacks that we've seen, such as the ones on October 7th. I would also say that if anyone is serious about defeating Hamas, then what they first have to defeat is the context which allows institutions like Hamas to even exist, a context of the occupation.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it. We will not solve the Middle East today, as we say after almost every conversation about the Middle East. We thank New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens for speaking mostly about his new bill that would lift the property tax exemption from Columbia and NYU and redistribute that money to CUNY, as well as a little bit about his activities with respect to the Middle East. Assemblymember, we appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Zohran Mamdani: Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

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