New York City’s landlords face relentless scrutiny as its housing market becomes less accessible by the day. But few proprietors stir public controversy like NYU, which owns more than $8 billion in buildings across roughly 150 addresses.

The aggregate value of NYU’s property totals more than any other private landlord’s, based on WSN’s analysis of 2025 city data. The school boasts its integration into local communities — but as housing costs soar, advocacy groups repeatedly challenge the ethics of NYU’s expansion.

The university held its first classes at Washington Square in 1835, but most of its current campus wasn’t established for another century. When mounting debt forced NYU to sell its Bronx site, it purchased the Washington Square Village complex and redeveloped several academic buildings near the park: grounding itself as a core part of the neighborhood at the start of the 1970s. 

Residents protested. They worried Bobst Library would obstruct views of the park, that local businesses would be demolished, and that their new neighbors would outprice bohemians formative to the community. But NYU continued building residence halls and academic buildings, citing an influx of out-of-state students who needed housing. 

“You can do well in this world if you’re absolutely the best or if you’re the best bargain, but not if you’re somewhere in the middle,” L. Jay Olivia, university president in the 1990s, said at the time. “We were in a position where we had to grow or die.”

Planning for 2031

In the early 2000s, NYU began sharing plans for expansion ahead of its 200th anniversary. Then-borough president Scott Stringer led a task force of local representatives, Manhattan community boards and neighborhood advocacy groups, urging the university to minimize its growth in the Village.

The task force reviewed NYU 2031 and recommended that the university preserve open spaces, prioritize sustainability and design buildings that blend into nearby architecture. But local groups still protested the plan, calling for NYU to expand elsewhere — such as the Financial District or Long Island City — and dozens of academic departments relayed concerns about the development’s costs and effects on Village communities.

After years of public hearings and legal pushback, the City Council approved a revised version of NYU’s plan in 2012 — most notably the $1.2 billion Paulson Center, which was reduced from over 1 million square feet to 735,000. While NYU had worked alongside the task force, several preservationist groups were unsatisfied with the result.

Drawing the line

The university is still pushing for a clear path to its expansion, challenging a zoning provision that restricts how it uses property in NoHo and SoHo. The provision — intended to preserve affordable housing — stipulates that NYU can use its seven buildings in the neighborhoods for administrative work, such as faculty offices, but not for classrooms or residence halls.

NYU sued the city in 2022, claiming the provision unjustly restricts educational programming. A court dismissed the case for lack of demonstrated harm — but it was reinstated in 2024, when NYU said it planned to expand in the area.

Taxation turmoil

In 2023, Zohran Mamdani — then a state assemblymember — raised concerns about tax breaks that save NYU more than $140 million. While the university pays around $15 million in property taxes for spaces it leases out, its status as an educational nonprofit exempts nearly all of its buildings. 

Mamdani’s proposal would repeal tax breaks for any private university that saves more than $100 million and redirect the funding to City University of New York. The bill garnered support from several local advocacy groups but has yet to make it to the floor.