Co-ops, pols fear prospect of new rules

The City Council recently introduced new legislation that will regulate the pet population in New York City apartment buildings. And while Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, the main sponsor of the bill, said the legislation is not aimed directly at co-ops, some local politicians and members of Riverdale co-op boards feel that the autonomy of co-ops is under attack. 

The issue co-op board members have isn’t just with the proposed new animal rules, but with increasing government control, as this newest piece of legislation comes on the heels of other proposed changes on co-op business. 

The most recent legislation about pets proposes universal rules on pet ownership in apartment buildings. Those who already have pets would be able to keep them as long as they are in compliance with New York City health codes. Those who already live in co-ops would be allowed to keep the same number of pets they had when they started their lease or purchased their apartment. But if they decided they wanted a cat instead of a dog they would need written permission from the owner of the building.

Several politicians have come out against the pet proposal and voiced their opinions at a meeting organized by the ARC several weeks ago. 

“I feel that co-ops should have a greater say in what they decide the rules to be,” state Senator-elect Adriano Espaillat said later in an interview. “I live in a co-op that’s pet friendly, and I like it that way, and that’s the way that the board and our residents see it through.”

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) also proposed a finance bill in October that would defer lending houses like Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac from giving mortgages to owners of apartments in buildings that charge a Flip tax.

Flip taxes were originally used in the 1980s when many apartments were converting to co-ops and owners were selling their apartments for more than they paid (commonly called flipping). The co-op board would charge that seller a fee and the money would be put into the building’s reserve fund to be used for renovation and maintenance. The practice is now widely used in co-ops in place of boards hiking building-wide taxes, but the standards have changed. Now either the seller or the buyer can be charged that fee, varying from building to building. The money is still put in the co-op’s reserve. 

Another piece of legislation currently making the rounds in the council would require co-op boards to provide rejected applicants with a written explanation of the reason for their dismissal within a set time period. Another would require a standard process for all applicants. The proposed bills would take a chop at what some consider legal housing discrimination, a serious offense for non co-op building owners in the tri-state area.  

“Recent and current attempts at legislating against the authority of co-op boards in the City Council and successful forays against co-ops by local governments in surrounding counties have made this a critical issue,” Stephen J. Budihas, president of the Association of Riverdale Cooperatives and Condominiums (ARC), wrote in a recent letter to The Press.

Mr. Espaillat and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz also oppose legislation that would change the rules co-ops have to follow when choosing applicants. 

“People who sit on co-op boards aren’t looking at black and white they’re looking at green,” Mr. Dinowitz said, implying that discrimination wasn’t prevalent in Riverdale co-ops.

But Mike Kelly, director of government affairs for New York Association of Realtors, said that while reported cases of discrimination are few and far between, they do exist. He said he believes that extending these rules to co-ops will not only save future tenants money and time but help cease prejudicial practices. 

“Co-ops can hide behind a veil of secrecy by not providing the co-op applicants with a reason for rejection,” he said, adding that, “[The legislation] will shed a lot of light on the co-op application process and hopefully weed out illegal discrimination that our members are telling us still exist.” 

Adam Stoler, a Riverdale resident who used to own a co-op, said he believes that co-op board members sometimes use their regulations to discriminate. 

“You can be gay, you can have a dog, there are a hundred reasons why they might reject you,” he said. “But if they reject you, they should tell you why. They should but they don’t because they don’t have to. There’s something morally wrong with that.”

He believes that co-ops should operate under the same laws that the rest of the housing industry does. In rebuttal to a letter praising politicians for their support from Mr. Budihas, Mr. Stoler sent a letter to The Press last week.

“Just as we would not tolerate discrimination by a landlord or a broker, we should not allow co-ops the ability to commit discrimination,” he wrote. 

Still, Mr. Budihas said that he and fellow members of the ARC, along with local co-op board leaders, are going to keep battling against legislation that encroaches on the freedom of co-ops to set regulations. 

“We don’t need the government to tell us what rules to adopt,” he said vigorously. “We will continue to remind them [politicians] of our stance. We like the way we live. Shareholders have elected to live by the regulations we have created, by which they must abide.”

Mr. Espaillat, for one, agreed. 

“I like to see the co-op board have the flexibility to adopt the issues that are not only convenient for and proper to our setting,” he said.