A lawsuit alleging the city's property tax system is biased against low-income and minority owners can proceed, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled Tuesday, dealing a blow to the Cuomo and de Blasio administrations' efforts to block the case.

A group called Tax Equity Now New York filed the suit in 2017 challenging a key aspect of the tax system: Because a state law limited how quickly property taxes can escalate, owners in areas where property values have since soared, such as Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn, now pay far lower taxes as a percentage of their home's value than owners of properties in neighborhoods of the Bronx and Staten Island. The coalition, which is comprised of odd bedfellows from advocacy and real estate circles, argues that this is unfair to minorities, who predominate in areas with higher property-tax rates.

"Today's decision probably brings us closer to achieving reform of New York City's discriminatory, regressive and unlawful property tax system than any single action taken or commission formed by the city over the last 40 years," Martha Stark, a former commissioner of the city's Department of Finance and the group's director of policy, said in a statement.

While the judge did dismiss most of the suit's arguments against the state, Albany will still have to defend itself against two of them, according to the plaintiffs.

"As the result of today's ruling," Stark said, "thousands of New York property owners will have their day in court."

The de Blasio administration readily admits that the system is unfair, but want it to be fixed by politicians rather than the courts. The plaintiffs agree but say they brought the case because decades have passed without anything close to meaningful reform.