The Fairway supermarket near the West Harlem waterfront was once a staple for the local community, and the area was long the subject of some Harlemites’ ambition for economic development. But when the 2.2-acre property on 12th Avenue north of West 125th Street went up for sale in 2022, Columbia University bought it for $84 million in cash, connecting its controversial Manhattanville campus expansion to the Hudson River waterfront.

That upfront cost was likely easier to swallow because, by state constitutional law, Columbia won’t have to pay property taxes on the land once it is converted to educational use. If Columbia were to begin developing the property in 2026, the university would save $12.19 million in property taxes over the following decade, based on an Indypendent review of the property’s tax records, and would be in the position to continue reaping the benefits of its tax exemption many more decades into the future. The Manhattanville expansion adds to the holdings of what is already the city’s largest private real-estate owner with a portfolio of more than 320 properties worth almost $4 billion — and $182 million a year in tax exemptions, The New York Times estimated in September 2023. Downtown, New York University benefits from $145 million in annual exemptions. At Columbia, graduate school costs around $90,000 a year, and at both schools, the overwhelming majority of students do not come from the city or state.

Meanwhile, the cash-strapped City University of New York system works to serve over 200,000 students, the majority of whom are low-income and non-white New Yorkers, with broken elevators and overworked professors. Many students work while studying to make ends meet.

Those “stark” contrasts, Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) said, are what led him to introduce a bill called the Repeal Egregious Property Accumulation and Invest it Right (REPAIR) Act last year. The measure would tax institutions with over $100 million in property-tax exemptions. If the legislation and requisite state constitutional amendment pass, only NYU and Columbia would be affected, redistributing about $327 million directly to CUNY annually, advocates say.

Mamdani says that when he speaks to fellow legislators, their first reaction is usually shock at the disparities and that the schools don’t pay property taxes. The legislation, sponsored in the State Senate by John Liu (D-Queens), has four cosponsors there and 12 in the Assembly.

At a Nov. 10 rally in Washington Square Park, Mamdani and City Comptroller Brad Lander, a fellow mayoral candidate, joined the NYC Union of Students to call for enacting the legislation.

“Resist! REPAIR! Make NYU pay their share!” the crowd of around 70 people chanted.

Founded earlier this year after a community organizing “summer camp” that brought together college students from across the city, the NYC Union of Students aims to build a coalition of students at both private and public universities working  toward the goals of student democracy, equity in educational resources and having schools serve the city’s communities.

“Being able to be in a room together is really important,” said Erin Lawson, a recent NYU graduate who is the REPAIR campaign director.

Many of the union’s organizers forged connections through last year’s student protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, and several have organized with the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

The union is developing locals at individual schools while holding cross-school events to build community and prepare for the campaign. Organizers emphasized that they are running the union bottom-up, embodying the democracy they want out of their institutions.

With a Brooklyn College bachelor’s degree under her belt, organizer Johanna von Maack was set to graduate with a second degree from Hunter College this past spring. But because of inadequate funding and staffing at the CUNY schools, she says, the last class she needed to finish wasn’t offered in the spring, so she’s taking it this semester.

“I know people that are in their fifth or sixth year,” von Maack said. “It’s because there are just not enough sections being offered for them to graduate on time.”

After decades of budget cuts and underfunding, students say broken infrastructure is common throughout the CUNY system. Some escalators are blocked off; they see rodents in buildings; and not all the bathrooms are fully functional.

Baruch College student Meeks Samuel, a member of the union, said she’s been stuck in an elevator multiple times. Once, she said, the elevator dropped a couple of floors. Afterwards, another person on the elevator lodged a complaint, but the rest went on with their day.

“It’s a mix of frustration, but also a lot of apathy,” Samuel said of the campus culture around the issues. Along with classmates and professors, organizers have tabled, posted flyers, and are hosting political-education events to engage the broader school community. 

Brooklyn College anthropology professor Naomi Schiller, a member of the Professional Staff Congress, the union local that represents 30,000 faculty and staff at CUNY, spoke at the rally. She said the poor conditions are sometimes “normalized” among students. While she’s lucky enough to have tenure, the “adjunctification” of CUNY has led to many of her colleagues only earning about $5,000 per class, with little job security, and some rushing between jobs at different campuses.

The REPAIR push comes after the New Deal for CUNY campaign, an unsuccessful attempt to return the system to the tuition-free status it had before 1976. At a federal level, Republicans passed a bill in 2017 to tax endowments at universities with assets exceeding $500,000 per student.

Columbia used eminent domain to acquire most of the Manhattanville campus site in the late 2000s. State Sen. Cordell Cleare, who represents Harlem and is a cosponsor of the REPAIR Act, introduced a bill in April that would prohibit the state urban development corporation from participating in the Manhattanville project. Mamdani said he was not familiar with the bill, which the Senate did not hold hearings on.

“REPAIR is a vital step toward years of private universities using eminent domain as a weapon for greed instead of a public interest,” said Kai Cogsville, a Harlem-based advocate for Cleare’s legislation.

REPAIR advocates say they’re preparing to ratchet up the pressure on legislators and administrators in the coming months. “We’re not gonna give up until we get what we want,” Lawson said.

NYU and Columbia did not respond to The Indypendent’s requests for comment by the time this article was published.

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