Socialist pol running for State Assembly lives in posh NYC condo built with property tax exemption he opposes
A Socialist candidate for State Assembly in Brooklyn, who regularly rails against real estate subsidies, is himself living in a posh Brooklyn condo built with the help of a controversial property tax exemption he’s opposed.
Eon Huntley, 39, is looking to unseat Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman in a hotly-contested June 25 Democratic primary for the state’s 56th district — an area covering portions of Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. Huntley is being supported by the Democratic Socialists of America, who are looking to further consolidate power in Brooklyn.
Huntley, however, is registered to vote in the 57th district at an address inside a luxury building, city Board of Elections records show. Public records additionally show he’s lived there for more than a decade.
“District lines are arbitrary,” Huntley told The Post about the the problematic address. “Community and neighborhood are another thing.”
Huntley’s building was constructed with the help of a developer-friendly 421-A tax abatement. The subsidy is designed to encourage developers to build affordable apartments by exempting units from almost all property taxes for decades.
The most recent property tax bill on Huntley’s apartment was $48.18. The candidate rents the unit, which is stabilized, for just under $3000 a month.
Housing advocates — like Huntley — have long complained the abatement is skewed toward wealthy developers and well-off tenants. House Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries enjoys a similar set up for his Prospect Heights abode.
In a May 2 questionnaire, Huntley offered no equivocation. In response to the question which read “Do you support 421a” he responded “no”
“Some people get nervous when we start recognizing & naming oppressive forces as ‘enemies.’ That’s because the status quo works for them — the developers & big landlords, the charter school industry working to gut public schools, the Zionist PACs supporting genocide in Gaza,” Huntley wrote in a X post on April 25.
“We’re done letting real estate $$$ destroy our communities,” he added in a May 16 X post.
Huntley said he still opposed 421-A because he believes in “extending rent stabilization for everyone.”
Critics said Huntley was a carpetbagger and his socialist leanings were a dealbreaker.
“A majority of the stuff that DSA represent for me does not speak to the middle class. For all the issues are geared towards the gentrifiers more so than the long timers,” Dr. Robert M. Waterman, lead pastor at the Antioch Baptist Church — a longtime district institution. “I think the DSA is wrong for my district.”
