New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly property tax exemptions for Columbia University — exemptions that he and his family benefited from for years as tenants of a stylish apartment complex owned by the Ivy League, The Post has learned.
Mamdani, a Democratic socialist state Assemblyman from Astoria, Queens, proposed legislation that calls for a dramatic alteration or repeal of real property tax exemptions for “private institutions of higher education.”
In New York City, private universities receive annual exemptions costing $659 million — with Columbia University and New York University accounting for more than $300 million combined.
Columbia, a largely tax-exempt, not-profit entity, is among the largest private property owners in the city.
The Ivy League institution based in Morningside Heights owns 150 buildings that are used to rent housing to more than 8,000 faculty, staff, post-doctoral, graduate, and select undergraduate student residents.
The tenants are also allowed to sublease their apartments.
Most of the housing is within walking distance of the Morningside campus on 116th Street and Broadway.
Among the buildings is a grand 38-unit apartment complex on the tony Riverside Drive exclusively reserved for Columbia faculty and staff.
Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor and Zohran’s dad, has been a leaseholder tenant at the Riverside Drive complex for 25 years.
Zohran Mamdani, 33, grew up in the building.
Because of massive tax breaks, the professors pay below-market or discounted rents compared to other private buildings in the area — at least 20% to 25% lower — Columbia sources said.
For example, last year, the Columbia property where the Mamdanis have lived received a 91% exemption, which resulted in an annual property tax liability of approximately $17,184, according to the city Department of Financial Services.
If the Riverside Drive building had not benefited from the exemption, the annual tax liability on the property would have been $190,942, according to DFS records.
That’s a massive savings of $173,758 for Columbia.
For the current fiscal year, the university pays a measly $16,698 on the building.
If the property had not benefited from the exemption, the annual tax liability on the property would have been $185,542.
That’s another savings of $168,844.
Mamdani’s parents are listed as living at the building from 2001 through at least early this year, property search records show.
Critics got a good belly laugh over the self-proclaimed socialist wanting to scrap a property tax benefit after he and his family enjoyed the break as Columbia tenants for decades.
“He personally benefited from the tax break. That makes him a hypocrite,” said state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, a Brooklyn resident.
Campaign strategist Hank Sheinkopf said Mamdani is not a good messenger to strip property tax breaks from Columbia.
“This guy will do anything to get elected. To call him a hypocrite is too kind,” Sheinkopf said.
“He’s benefited from the tax break and now he wants to eliminate it for everyone else?”
Columbia University said it opposed Mamdani’s legislation.
It offered no further comment on the rent it charges professors.
But some on the political left and right agree — including President Trump — that the tax breaks should be repealed or scaled back for universities.
Progressives complain that the exemption is a tax giveaway that deprives the government of revenues, while conservatives complain that institutions they say fail to stop antisemitic and anti-American activities on campuses shouldn’t be getting a break.
One professor told The Post that faculty members who opt out of the Columbia housing system get additional income as rent relief of just over $1,100 a month. This is supposed to offset some of the high cost of rent in privately owned buildings.
The decision of who gets to live in faculty housing is discretionary and up to the university, the professor said.
“While they say it’s a lottery, in reality, the university allocates apartments to professors they want to either attract from other schools or stop from leaving,” the professor said.
In one instance, a professor at the business school forced the university to combine two apartments into one, giving him a heavily subsidized 6-bedroom apartment next to the university, the source said.
Mamdani, who is second in the polls, defended his bill to eliminate the Columbia tax benefit his family has benefited from.
“Our state constitution exempts institutions of higher learning from property taxes, but as two of the largest landlords in the city, Columbia and NYU have clearly expanded far beyond that mission,” Mamdani said in a statement to The Post.
“This is just one example of how New York City’s property tax system is unfair and why we have been able to build a diverse coalition to support the REPAIR Act, including the New York Post’s editorial board,” he said.
Mamdani declined to comment on his family living in Columbia-subsidized housing.
His legislation would require Columbia, NYU and other private universities to pay their fair share of property taxes and redistribute the money to the Big Apple’s public university system, the City University of New York.
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