MANHATTAN

Manhattan's East River Housing has been awarded $30,087.29 in legal fees from a shareholder who sued the cooperative after the board ordered the removal of dog he'd kept in violation of a no-pet policy — and despite the shareholder's after-the-fact claim of disability.

The outcry over developer Extell's greenlight to build a separate entrance for mandated affordable apartments at 40 Riverside Blvd. has reached as high as Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. "The two-door system is an affront to New Yorkers' belief in fairness and diversity in our city we all live together," said Brewer in the New York Daily News. The Mayor agrees, saying he intends to ban so-called "poor doors" that segregate teachers, nurses, police officers, social workers and others of moderate means from bankers and lawyers — though unfortunately, not until an overall inclusionary-housing law is drafted about a year from now.

Extell's CEO, Gary Barnett, tells the paper he can't intersperse affordable and market-rate apartment and is forced economically to bunch them together. Funny — every other developer of such mixed-income housing seems to be able to do it just fine.

Politicians sounded a hue and cry when they learned developers wanted to install separate entrances — "poor doors" — for residents living in the affordable-housing part of new luxury buildings. But now one developer is getting his way regardless. The New York Post reports that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has approved Extell's plan for such a separate-but-equal entrance at the 33-story condominium at 40 Riverside Blvd. that the company is building on the Upper West Side.

Anything about this reek of 1950s segregation, with income instead of race? Well, as David Von Spreckelsen, senior vice president at Toll Brothers, told The Real Deal last year, “I think it’s unfair to expect very high-income homeowners who paid a fortune to live in their building to have to be in the same boat as low-income renters...." Yes, because all those nurses, teachers, police officers, writers and small-business owners are all scum of the Earth, unfit to use the same lobby as lawyers, bankers and, evidently, real-estate company senior vice presidents.

We've covered lawsuits filed by and against co-ops and condos for decades, here at Habitat. And just when we think there's nothing new under the sun, we find something new in the garage — specifically, the garage at 411 E. 53rd Street in Manhattan's Sutton Place neighborhood. And if you think a condo board and two men who grew up in a real-estate family wouldn't go to court over a backflow preventer — a plumbing valve that costs a few hundred bucks, plus labor — well … you'd be wrong.

Wary of dealing with the co-op board approval process, and desiring to own their own real-estate rather than just shares in a cooperative, many apartment buyers opt for condominiums over co-ops. This has rendered co-op prices' generally lower than those of comparable condos. But according to the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, reports The Real Deal, co-ops are catching up: In Manhattan in this year's second quarter, co-ops on average spent 71 days on the market, down from 160 days during the same period of 2012. And the median price rose as well during that time, jumping 9 percent to $725,000. The condo median remains much higher, at $1.26 million.

Children being turned away from playrooms, seniors denied use of the gym and developer Extell's infamous "poor door" at 40 Riverside Boulevard: Such refusal of amenities to rent-stabilized and subsidized residents in some high-end co-ops, condos and rental buildings are prompting legislators to seek laws preventing such practices. Ronda Kaysen's eye-opening article in The New York Times reports on several cases, which critics say divides communities and turns average working people, from teachers to entertainers to retirees, into pariahs in their own homes. What do advocates say? According to the head of one development company it's because such people may — may — bring down property values. How exactly a police officer, nurse, social worker or graphic designer brings down property values, nobody is saying.

The Carnegie House, at 100 West 57th Street, is a fairly traditional co-op. Complicated in 1962, the grey-brick beauty was named after nothing less than Carnegie Hall. Yet even such an old-school cooperative wants to keep up with the times, and if it can lower its electricity bills by 15 percent, so much the better. Thus, the more than 300-unit, 21-story building did a top-to-bottom overhaul of its energy systems — a $788,000 project that will recoup its cost in six years, thanks to $197,000 in incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), a loan at about half the market rate and the aforesaid electric-bill savings. Amy Zimmer of DNAInfo.com covers the Carnegie and other buildings, and offers five energy-savings tips.

The single biggest complaint among co-op and condo residents? Probably the neighbors' noise. And at one condominium in Park Slope, Brooklyn, that noisy neighbor is nothing less than a DJ who produces music — in a studio in his apartment. After months of fruitless negotiation between neighbors, the condo board told the DJ that a music-production studio violates zoning laws and to either soundproof the place or wear headphones while playing music. The DJ refused to do either — and, incredibly, the condo board backed down! What recourse do the DJ's neighbors have? The New York Times' Ronda Kaysen examines options in her "Ask Real Estate" column. She also helps an East Williamsburg reader wanting to know about rent-to-own apartments, and discusses an East Village co-op board whose members are paid for their service.

In 1980, the co-op board president of 142 East 71st Street asked Gerard J. Picaso if he was interested in talking to the seven-person board about managing the newly converted, 42-unit building. Picaso recalls that he had a "great" interview, but afterward, the president confessed to the agent that there was no way the tony East Side board would hire the young, witty manager with the bushy hair and thick mustache. They were more comfortable with the white-gloved elegance and low-key style of a larger, more established firm.

The building was just known as 209 East 56th Street in 1989 when Mark Greenberg Real Estate (MGRE) was hired as manager; it wasn’t until years later, when the board decided that a building name would help sales, that the co-op was rechristened The Sterling. The name’s greatest significance was in how it was devised: The board involved every shareholder, using a survey to choose a name.

That’s not unusual for the hands-on board, whose members believe in the personal touch. In 1991, the 107-unit property between Second and Third Avenues, was managed by a large firm that was “nickel-and-diming us, and that would drive me crazy,” says Mary Ann Savarese, who first served as the head of the tenants’ group and continued on as the president, a post she still holds. “We needed a change.”