MANHATTAN

Sharon Roush moved into The Antoinette in 2007 but didn't get involved in board matters until co-op board president Harvey Goldman approached her to sign a petition calling for a special meeting. The purpose of the meeting? To try to rescind the new shares that had been allocated to Goldman's apartment when he and his wife enclosed a terrace to create a new master bedroom and bath.

Roush was startled. "His own agenda," she says of Goldman, "was to throw out the [other] directors."

In 1950, a young Jay Silverzweig, the owner of a plastics business, watched electricity costs take a toll on his neighbors in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Two fellow entrepreneurs, who used steam to clean rags, finally decided to get off the electric grid and worked out a cogeneration system (or CHP, i.e., "combined heat and power") that uses natural gas to produce electrical and thermal power.

More than 60 years later, those early experiments in alternative energy were lurking somewhere in Silverzweig's mind as he spearheaded the $1.5 million cogen project at the Brevoort East, a 26-story, 325-unit cooperative at 20 East 9th Street in Greenwich Village.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a mother and daughter living together is a "lifestyle" a condo-board president doesn't like? So says a lawsuit by the wealthy former mistress of Baron de Rothschild and their love child. Meanwhile, a condo board in South Harlem joins the ranks of those objecting to a restaurant for noise and other issues. Read a reporter's firsthand account of being trapped inside The Strand fire, an analysis of increasing "disability dog" litigation, and tricks 'n' tips for acing weird co-op boards' admission interviews. Plus: People who live glass buildings shouldn't throw stones at studies about overheated glass buildings.

The landmark court decision in 40 W. 67th Street v. Pullman (2003) set the precedent that fully established that New York State co-op boards could, within certain criteria, evict shareholders found to be "objectionable." Many jocularly call this "the nuclear option," and it should only be used as a last resort. There are options boards can take before circumstances reach that extreme point. 

But if you do need to pull a Pullman, how do you go about it?

As the second storm of the week hit New York City and its environs, some managers say calcium chloride, or sidewalk salt, is in short supply. "We are running out," said Pamela DeLorme, president of Delkap Management, based in Howard Beach, Queens. "We bought a few thousand bags before the season began, but with the frequent storms, the substance is now in short supply." Delkap obtained about 2,000 bags of salt two weeks ago.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week: Remember that deaf grandfather a couple of weeks ago in Battery Park City, where the condo board disapproved a service dog? Yeah, that dog died, but the man has another one and the board's not pursuing eviction. However, the homeowner is still pursuing an anti-discrimination lawsuit. In better news for boards, the U.S. Senate is delaying an increase in the cost of mandatory flood insurance — and speaking of which, some New York City property managers are encouraging serious disaster-prep at their buildings. Plus, it's the latest amenity: personal shoppers! Which they still don't have at Billy Joel's former co-op, now up for sale.

Is the co-op or condo liable when secondhand smoke emanates from an apartment? It is indeed, according to the landmark ruling in Poyck v. Bryant. When smoke gets in your eyes — or nose or throat — this violates the warranty of habitability that applies to all residential apartments.

Peter Poyck, the owner of condominium unit 5-D at 22 West 15th Street in Manhattan, began subleasing this apartment to Stanley and Michelle Bryant in 1998. In March 2001, new neighbors moved into 5-C next door. The newcomers constantly smoked there and in the common fifth-floor hallway, and secondhand smoke penetrated the walls. The Bryants complained to the superintendent, Frank Baldanza, who allegedly spoke to the next-door neighbors, to no avail. The smoke continued unabated.

When the super's efforts failed, Stanley Bryant wrote a letter on June 29, 2001, to the super, to Peter Poyck, and to Poyck's attorney seeking a solution. This was not simply a matter of unpleasant odors; it represented an ongoing health hazard for Bryant's wife, who was recovering from her second cancer surgery and who claimed to be extremely allergic to such smoke. To try to remedy the situation, Bryant sealed his apartment entry door with weather-stripping and a draft barrier. He operated two HEPA air filters 'round the clock, incurring additional electric charges. Despite this, the Bryants could still smell smoke from 5-C in their apartment.

Bryant wrote another letter, this time to owner/landlord Poyck, asking if he could remedy this problem, adding that otherwise, " we must consider finding a healthier living situation."

A monthly column by HABITAT's editorial director.

Sept. 29, 2011 — My mother did not suffer fools gladly and, when something seemed wrong, she didn't mince words. "That's stupid," she would say in her pronounced Greek accent. "Really stupid."

I wonder what she would have made of the recent goings-on at a small, self-managed Manhattan co-op. From what I have learned, the board president came home to find a long-winded message on his home answering machine.

An apartment in the 22-unit Manhattan co-op where I am board president recently reported the possible presence of bedbugs. Before the board members could schedule an inspection, the tenant-shareholder in the possibly infested apartment told us he was already taking action: At the same time that he notified the board, he also apparently had scheduled an exterminator to come in and deal with the bugs. No chemicals involved, either: He was going to put on the heat, literally. And faster than you can say, "Flame on" (or so it seemed to me), a big generator, with tubing coming into the second-floor windows, was sitting outside our building, with hot air being pumped into the apartment.

Harold "Heshey" Jacob, longtime property manger of the sister co-ops Hillman Houses and East River Housing, knew in 2009 that sludgy and sooty No. 6 heating oil was on its way out. With the help of New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who lives in Hillman, he convinced the co-op boards of the 2,500 -unit, seven-building complex to switch to dual-fuel systems using cleaner No. 2 oil and, mainly, natural gas. It was a big, big switch. How did he manage to convince not one but three boards to go that route?