New York's Cooperative and Condominium Community

Habitat Magazine Insider Guide

HABITAT

NEW YORK CITY

A READER ASKS: I live in a midsize co-op building in Brooklyn. We have a new super and porter and while we often see them cleaning up the lobby, they aren't keeping the basement as clean as it should be. The trash bins overflow and it smells, and last week I was horrified to see a rat scurrying around. Where there's one there's many. I don't want to make trouble for the new super and porter with the board, but I feel like I need to say something before we're overrun with rats. 

Proponents of the co-op tax abatement program scored a huge win Thursday, June 25 after the State Senate and Assembly and Governor Cuomo agreed to a four-year extension. According to the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums (CNYC), legislation passed by both houses grants an extension of the property tax abatement program for home owners in New York City cooperatives and condominiums. "Thanks to the Department of Finance, this extender is seamless, because it was included on our property tax bills for the new fiscal year, which begins on July 1, saving condominium unit owners and cooperative corporations from confusion and cash flow problems," says the CNYC. This morning, Governor Cuomo signed the legislation into law, allowing those who can benefit from tax abatement program to breathe easy through June 30, 2019.

Anyone who read about the saga at Sherwood Village, a co-op in Queens, knows that it's not representative of your typical board. The board's treasurer from 1991 to 1995 became convinced that the co-op was riddled with corruption and "fictitious billing." He got the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Queens district attorney's office to open formal investigations. Neither found any evidence of financial wrongdoing, but allegations of corruption continued. It's quite the story, and one that reminds boards about the dangers of letting politics get personal. However, it doesn't mean that boards shouldn't exercise caution and protect themselves from potential fraud. 

Why should the garbage chute be at the top of your building's priority list? You might think it's just the place where building residents throw out their trash, but if the chute is not properly maintained and kept clean, it not only creates an excellent breeding ground for urban pests but also becomes a fire hazard. When you think about properly maintaining your co-op or condo unit, it's easy to focus on areas that are immediately visible: the lobby, the gym, and even the laundry room. We expect these areas to be clean, and in the case of the latter two, for equipment and machines to be in good working order. As we saw in our "Barons of the Boiler Room" series, it's easy to take areas that are typically considered stinky for granted, such as the garbage chute. 

Navigating the world of New York City real estate can be overwhelming and draining. That's why those who can afford to do so often seek the help and guidance of a broker. Broker fees can be quite high, so it's not surprising that, sometimes, the higher the fee, the higher an apartment hunter's expectations. High expectations, however, can result in disappointment. Such is the case with one woman whose daughter just rented an apartment in Manhattan. "To my dismay," she writes in this week's Ask An Expert column on Brickunderground, "I discovered on move-in day that there was a chemical dependency residential treatment program right across the street. The broker didn't say anything about this but took an almost $6,000 fee. Do I have any recourse?" Six thousand bucks may be a lot of dough, but Brickunderground experts still answered: no. "Your broker was under no obligation whatsoever to tell you about a nearby rehab center," they agree. Warburg broker Shirley Hackel adds: "Caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware. The agent is not obligated to point out that a residential treatment program is on the block. It's entirely possible that the agent was totally unfazed by it." In fact, the only way this dismayed mom might have some recourse is if either she or her daughter "specifically asked about the presence of a nearby rehab center and the broker lied," says Jeffrey S. Reich, a real estate attorney with Schwartz, Sladkus, Reich, Greenberg, Atlas. This case is certainly a reminder that when looking for a home in the big city, you shouldn't just be looking at the apartment. You should be looking at the building's immediate surroundings as well. Hopping on the ole Google machine doesn't hurt, either. 

Your treasurer has presented his latest report, and he has offset expected losses from operating expenses with money from the reserve fund. Your managing agent has sole control over your reserves. Your manager uses the reserves to pay for capital projects and does nothing to replenish them. If any of these scenarios are familiar to you, then watch out: they are warning signs that something is amiss. 

In many co-ops, the annual cost of water now approaches the annual cost of heating fuel — and in some cases exceeds it. Although water in New York City is still quite inexpensive (roughly one and a half cents per gallon), we tend to use a lot of it. One reason is that it leaks without our knowledge. Slowly, and without drawing much attention to themselves, small leaks scattered throughout a building can add up over time. If the combined leaks in a building equaled one gallon per minute (gpm), they would cost about $6,700 over the course of a year.

What can you do?

That was the question addressed by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development when it funded a pilot project to develop a prototype of an early warning system to track down leaks. I was involved with it and the following photographs and charts should offer you methods to fight leaks and save money.

Commercial Spaces: Is Your Co-op Sitting on Gold?

Written by Frank Lovece on June 22, 2015

New York City

Commercial space — the final frontier. Now that the infamous "80/20" rule has been relaxed, co-ops don't need to keep commercial-space rents artificially low, below 20 percent of a co-op's total income. With many long-term leases signed during the co-op conversion boom of three decades ago ending, boards are starting to realize they're sitting on gold.

Or are they?

It's no secret that with New York co-ops, market-rate rents for ground-level storefronts are high. Specific numbers are hard to cite, since commercial-rent studies lump together residential retail space with office-building retail and office space. But Adelaide Polsinelli, a principal and senior management director for Eastern Consolidated, says storefront rents in places like Manhattan's SoHo district "have tripled in two years," although she and others warn that market rates vary by neighborhood.

A READER ASKS: I am the new board president in a midsize co-op in Queens. It's my first time serving on a board, let alone as president. The building is very old and it looks like we will have our hands full figuring out what needs fixing and upgrading. One issue that I find especially disconcerting is that the previous board wasn't really on top of documenting things. I've been going through stacks of old paperwork. The building got a letter from the Department of Environmental Protection a few years ago stating that we needed to get a backflow prevention device. But there's no documentation that we did anything about it. There have been a lot of changes in the building, so contacting the previous board is not really an option. Is there an easy way to find out if we are in compliance? Am I worrying about nothing? 

Remember SimCity? It's an open-ended city-building computer and console video game series originally designed by developer Will Wright. If games — albeit the nerdier variety — are your cup of tea, then you could easily lose hours and hours developing land. Well, how about a web-based game that lets you plan affordable housing in New York City? It's a bit more niche than SimCity, but if you play "Inside the Rent," you'll be setting up "a sustainable first-year rent for two-bedroom apartments in a hypothetical building by adjusting expense variables," according to DNAinfo. Created by Citizens Housing Planning Council, a New York City nonprofit research and education organization, with help from the cartography firm VanDam Media, the game reportedly pulls numbers from real housing scenarios in Morrisania, Stapleton, Jamaica, Mott Haven, East New York, Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, East Harlem, Harlem, Astoria, Long Island City, Downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and the Lower East Side. You select a neighborhood and then a target rent, and adjust factors that include building size, amenities, and construction and maintenance labor costs. Just like SimCity will throw earthquakes, fires, and other disasters at you to see how you and your simulated city cope, Inside the Rent has players seeking government subsidies for land and construction costs, as well as property tax abatements in an effort to keep rents within target. It's not easy! And as DNAinfo points out, it's "arguably the major takeaway from the game: building affordable housing is not easy." It sounds pretty cool. Wonder if Mayor Bill de Blasio already has it…

Photo from Citizens Housing Planning Council

Ask the Experts

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Learn all the basics of NYC co-op and condo management, with straight talk from heavy hitters in the field of co-op or condo apartments

Professionals in some of the key fields of co-op and condo board governance and building management answer common questions in their areas of expertise

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