New York City Council members spent part of a June 2 budget hearing at City Hall making the case for a package of homeowner relief in the fiscal year 2027 budget: a $150 property tax rebate, a bigger Homeowner Help Desk, and grants to install heat pumps in one- and two-family homes. The push was first reported by the Queens Chronicle.

The three asks came at a joint hearing on the executive budget proposal, where the Committee on Housing and Buildings joined the Committee on Finance and others. The through-line is people who already own their homes and are struggling to keep them, a group the Council argued gets skipped over when the city talks about affordable housing.

The rebate would send $150 to every STAR-eligible household. About 600,000 households get that exemption, so the Council put the price tag at roughly $90 million. STAR is the state’s School Tax Relief exemption, which lowers property taxes for owner-occupied primary homes, so the rebate targets people who live in the homes they own. It would apply to Class 1 and Class 2 primary homeowners, the classes that cover most houses and residential buildings.