This NYC mayoral candidate wants to make property taxes a core election issue

The mayoral campaign in New York City is in full swing, and candidates are aiming to inject their campaigns with hot-button topics that could resonate with voters in a closely watched election.

To that end, an independent candidate is training his eye on the issue of property taxes, a sensitive one for people around the country who are reckoning with steep increases in their tax bills over the past few years.

Jim Walden is a former Democratic assistant U.S. attorney who is running in the primary election as an independent under the “Integrity Party,” his own line on the ballot. The party earned its place through the submission of 23,750 petition signatures, his campaign said late last month.

Walden’s proposal calls for a shift of “the property-tax burden away from middle- and lower-income New Yorkers — especially outer-borough families — and toward luxury and high-value properties,” he said. “Taxes will be tied to transparent, neighborhood-specific market data, with less bureaucracy and fewer loopholes.”

Under this plan, Walden calls for “even some not-for-profits” to “contribute their fair share under this simplified system.” Older New Yorkers, meanwhile, “will see their taxes frozen at retirement and reduced annually,” the campaign claimed.

In a statement, Walden called the Big Apple’s current property tax system “unfair and confusing,” saying that residents can expect “transparent, rational and fair taxes” under his proposal.

He also specifically pointed to the provision for seniors, saying they will get “the retirements they earned with lower tax burdens every year.”

Specifically, Walden’s plan calls for a graduated scale of tax rates based on market sales data as opposed to individualized assessments.

“The sales data for each property is measured only on local sales of similar properties,” the campaign said of the plan. “High-value properties will pay higher rates. The plan includes a property-tax freeze for seniors, with a guaranteed step down in rates every year. The plan also requires that wealthy not-for-profits contribute their fair share under the new system.”

The campaign also released more substantive details about the plan online.

Most of the attention on the New York City mayoral race is trained on the Democratic primary, where five candidates are vying for the party’s nomination. Currently, that field is led by former New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, according to recent data from the Marist Poll.

Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who won the race as a Democrat in 2021, is running for reelection as an independent in the 2025 cycle. Adams and Walden are the only independent candidates in the 2025 election as of Monday.

While most of the city’s mayors since 1974 have been Democrats, the city has elected two Republican leaders over the past 35 years. In 1993, Rudy Giuliani was elected, and in 2001, Michael Bloomberg won as a Republican, though he later left the party.

Bloomberg is the only independent candidate to be elected as New York City’s mayor since William Russell Grace in 1884.