The Neighborhood Front

Although federal Section 8 housing

funds may be drying up with the shift in
focus under the Reagan administration
against more funding for low and
moderate income housing, there are still
a number of projects in New York
City's pipeline. Community groups
involved in joint ventures with
developers should find a new book
entitled Non-Profit/Profit Partnerships
in Housing Development by Howard B.
Burchman, an urban planner and
housing expert, a very useful guide.
Copies are available from the Fund for
the City of New York ...
In brooklyn, three tenant organiza-
tions that had been in the city's Tenant
Interim Lease Program recently bought
their buildings as tenant-run, low-cost
With the help of the
Flatbush Development Corporation and
the Urban Homesteading Assistance
Board, 20 tenant families at 25
Stratford Road paid $250 each for their
Flatbush apartments. The building had
been under tenant management in the
TIL program since 1979 when it was
taken over by the city for non-payment
of taxes . .. At UU Ocean Avenue, also
in Flatbush, tenants bought their
47-unit building for $62,500, or about
$1,500 per family. This pricetag for the
building-one-half the assessed value
of the property-is the figure arrived at
by city housing officials and the tenants
after numerous negotiations. This area
is not eligible for federal Community
Development funds and, hence, the city
will not offer a $250-a-unit sales
price ... After an uphill battle to save
their building which became city-owned
in 1978 (see City Limits, March, 1980),
the tenants at 280 Dean Street in the
Boerum Hill section became the first
residents in the area to buy their 20-unit
building at $250-per-apartment from
the city through the TIL program.
According to Inez Ortiz, a founding
member and president of the tenants
association, there were "lots of
problems and frustrations, but it was
worth it. We earned it!" . . . Accion
Latina, a three-year-old organization in
the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, has
reported some recent victories with
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982
tenants in the area. Tenants of 467
Pacific Street have made it through a
winter that saw water pipes and boiler
mysteriously broken after a rent strike
was started because of lack of heat.
Court-ordered repairs were carried out
by the city under the Emergency Repair
Program and owner Kenneth Noonan
now owes the city $52,500 for the work,
although the mortgage holder is now
running the building ... And tenants of
254 Wyckoff Street managed to have
one of their own, Serafina Rodriguez,
made 7 A administrator after owners
Katherine Burke and Associates failed
to comply with a court repair stipula-
tion.
w. Philip Johnson, former executive
director of the Division of Community
Development and Neighborhood
Preservation Programs in HPD's Office
of Development, has been named to the
nine-member Rent Guidelines Board
which will be holding public hearings in
June to determine increases for next
year's leases for the city's 956,000 rent-
stabilized apartments. He is now a
partner in Johnson-Robinson Associ-
ates, a Brooklyn-based real estate firm.
Johnson will represent the public on the
board ...
Jamaica Savings Bank's application
to convert from a state-chartered
institution into a federally-supervised
mutual savings bank and shift its main
office from Jamaica, Queens to
Lynnbrook on Long Island has been
met with a challenge from the City
Commission on Human Rights. The
protest cited the bank's poor record of
community involvement and its with-
drawal from the mortgage market. A
hearing on the issue was held in June.
Congressman Charles Schumer,
Democrat of Brooklyn, has introduced
legislation in the House known as the
Tenant Credit Reporting Act aimed at
protecting tenants against landlord
blacklisting by companies engaging in
tenant services. Under this Act, tenants
would receive advance notice that they
are the subject of a tenant report so that
they may check their file and make the
appropriate corrections or inform a
prospective landlord of inaccuracies. 0
Send news of your neighborhood or
organization to: The Neighborhood
Front, 424 West 33 St., New York, N. Y.
10001.
ATrENTION!
Santa Monica, California,wHl be the
site of the 3rd annual National Tenant
Union Conference. 500 tenant activists
2
or more are expected to attend the
conference scheduled for July 22-25,
1982.
The various workshops to be offered
at the conference this year will include:
tenant organizing; building city-wide
tenant associations; public housing, co-
ops and other alternative housing; rent
control; squatting; electoral campaigns,
and much more.

For any further information
send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the
NTU, c/o Sheiterforce, 380 Main Street,
East Orange, New Jersey 07018.
__.. __ ..i
I
CONTENTS Volume XII Number 6
The Neighborhood Front 2
Short Term Notes
Suit for Transit Tax Data 4
Puerto Rico Squatters Evicted
City Sales Tag on
Chelsea Buildings
The SRO Gunsels
Chinatown Developers May
Lose Special Status
Tax Break Renewal
Stalled, For Now
Staten Island's Sandy Ground
Holds on to its History
5
6
7
8
9
10
Descendants of a pre-Civil War community of free Blacks founded in
the then wilds of Staten Island are now trying to stave off condos and
other development. A IOI-year-old resident tells how it is-and was.
Community Boards in the Buffer Zone 13
The 59 " little city halls" around the city are frequently misunderstood
by residents, ignored by the city and alway!> overworked. They remain
an important part of every neighborhood's go,":ernment.
The Civil Defense Fraud
18
Could the new civil defense program actually ensure more people die in
nuclear war? Dr . Barry Commoner argues yes, and says the government
has known it for years.
Hard 'Urnes at the Co-op Bank 20
As it goes private and tries to cope with a decreased budget, the Co-op
Bank has a tough task. It's run into trouble in other, unexpected areas,
especially labor relations. First of a two-part report.
22
A Co-op Wave in Jackson Heights
A torrent of cooperative offering plans are pouring through the big, old
apartment buildings that line the tree-lined avenues of this multi-ethnic
community.
The Mitchell-Lama Trade Orf
2 ~
Should repairs for distressed Mitchell-Lama apartments be purchased at
the price of higher prices for those selling their co-ops?
A Bill for Loft Tenants
28
New York City's loft tenants finally received a loft bill. Here's how and
what they got.
A New Threat to Rent Control
Letters
The Other 62-Acre Question
City Aid for SROs
Fuel Decrease
Not Passed Along
J
March to Save the Lower East Side
Cover photos by Laurie Peek
29'
31
32
32
35
3
"Save the Lower East Side," said 1,500 residents and supporters last
month. See inside back page.
( CITYUMITS)
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982
Short Term Notes
Suit Seeks To Track
Transit Tax Info
City Limits and the Straphangers
Campaign, a transit riders advocacy
group, have filed suit against the City of
New York to obtain access to tax re-
cords that would provide details about a
$9 million transit tax refund to real
estate developers. 'The legal action, initi-
ated on May 25 in State Supreme Court,
was taken under the state Freedom of
Information Law.
The magazine's interest in the suit
stems from its coverage of the transit
t'!x issue, which began in November
1981. To date, City Limits has pub-
lished three articles documenting the
rise and fall of the measure, which was
designed to impose a 10 percent tax on
the capital gains (profits) from commer-
cial real estate sales of $1 million or
more. The funds thus generated were to
subsidize the Transit Authority'S budget
for opf1'ating the city's bus and subway
' ysten The plan, passed by the state
legislature last July and implemented in
. October, was based on the concept that
the high value of the taxed properties is
greatly enhanced by the mass transit
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
system's continued operation.
On two occasions during the course
of its coverages, City Limits attempted
to secure from the city Finance Depart-
ment details about the transit taxpayers;
both times the inquiries were turned
away on the basis of confidentiality.
The suit was initiated after the state
legislature, heavily lobbied by the city
administration and the real estate indus-
try, retroactively repealed the measure.
That action will result in a $9 million re-
fund to the 58 corporations and individ-
uals who paid the tax (see "Jumping the
Turnstile," May 1982).
At a press announcing the
suit, City Limits and the Straphangers
representatives noted that information
about who is receiving those refunds
should be well within the range of the
public's "right to know." They added
that the circumstances surrounding the
city-backed real estate windfall-ques-
tions of credibility in this election year
and the impending transit fare in-
crease-increased the need for disclo-
sure.
The suit alleges that no section of the
state's Freedom of Information Lawex-
plicitly shields the tax data from public
examination. The city claims that,
because the tax measure was drafted
hastily, a secrecy provision was inad-
vertentlyomitted.
City Limits and Straphangers spokes-
people further contend('cI that no inva-
sion of privacy would result from dis-
closure about the transit refundees
because the information on the capital
gains tax forms-such as the selling
price of the properties and the prices
they were originally purchased for-can
be found in several public documents.
Also, the co-plaintiffs argued, real
estate tax laws, including those govern-
ing property tax assessments and the
city's real property transfer tax, allow
for the names of taxpayers and the
amounts they pay to be on public
record.
Unless the city secures a delay, the
suit is answerable in court on June 17.
o T.L.
4
No-Show
Smoke
Alarms
In response to the no-show perfor-
mance of New York City landlords, 80
percent of whom failed to install man-
datory smoke detectors in their build-
ings, State Senator Manfred Ohrenstein,
Democrat of Manhattan, has intro-
duced legislation that would give ten-
ants the right to install certified detec-
. tors in their apartments and deduct the
cost, up to $30,00, from their rent. This
legislation, which has not been sched-
uled for committee debate, empowers
tenants to act in cases where their land-
lord is negligent in complying with the
local smoke detector law. The proposed
bill specifies that tenants must first noti-
fy the landlord in a certified letter of
their intention to purchase and install a
detector, in order to qualify f9r rental
reduction. The landlord then has two
weeks in which to comply with the city
law by installing his own if he
does not respond, the tenant can pro-
ceed with the self installation and rent
write-off.
Although it does not directly address
the health hazard controversy that has
been sparked by the widespread
installation of the cheaper ionization
detectors, nonetheless, this bill would
allow those tenants who are concerned
about the dangers of low radiation to
select and install the alternative photo-
electric model.
The proposed legislation, which has
been introduced in both the State Senate
(S-9564) and the State Assembly
(A-12457), does not invalidate the land-
lord's legal obligation to instaH detec-
tors. He remains responsible up until
the time when the tenant gives notice
and actually installs the detector. Ten-
ants must allow apartment access to
landlords for their inspection in these
cases. 0 Harriet Cohen
Puerto Rico Evicts 'Model Colony'
Military police moving past burning dwellings aJ Villa Sin Miedo.
Squatting on government-owned land
in Puerto Rico has been a frequent last
resort for the housing needy on that is-
land where standard and affordable
shelter is becoming increasingly scarce.
Last month, in the largest eviction
move so far, hundreds of government
police routed a colony of over 200 fami-
lies living 20 miles east of San Juan.
One policeman was killed and ten peo-
ple wounded in the May 18 raid. Police
set fire to homes and bulldozers levelled
what remained.
The squatters responded by march-
ing, along with hundreds of sympathetic
students from the University of Puerto
Rico, into San Juan where they began a
day-long sit-in in the halls of the Puerto
Rican legislature. After receiving a
pledge from leaders of the opposition
party to return them to the village, the
squatters departed.
The village, known as La Villa Sin
Miedo-The Village Without Fear-
was started in November, 1980. Most
dwellings were rudimentary shacks, but
some were permanent, well-constructed
dwellings, according to Robert Cohen,
an' attorney with the' 'Puerto Rican
Institute for civil rights in New York
which has represented the tenants.
The squatters had dug gardens, piped
in water and electricity, and were in the
process of paving sidewalks when the
raid occurred. "It was a long term
community," said Cohen. "They were'
trying to build a model colony."
Government harassment of the set-
tlement had taken the form over the
past year of cutting the supply of water
and electricity, he said. Officially, the
land has been leased to a dairy farmer,
although there was suspicion among the
families it held far more value, perhaps
even strategic minerals. In an earlier
effort to dislodge the villagers, the gov-
ernment offered subsidized housing to
those whose incomes qualified them.
Almost half the families accepted, the
government said, and charged that
those who remained owned other homes
and were looking to speculate on the
land.
There are an estimated 20,000 people
squatting on government land in Puerto
Rico, most of them in the island's
5
northeast. How to handle these colonies
has been a political dispute between the
Governor, Carlos Romero Barcelo, and
the Popular Democratic Party which
controls the legislature. A Supreme
Court decision against the right of the
squatters to remain was followed by
passage of a bill granting title to the
village to those in need of housing. Gov-
ernor Romero Barcelo's veto of that bill
set the stage for the eviction. 0 T.R.
Disabled Service
to be Cut
An apartment referral service which
has found homes for 330 disabled peo-
ple since its inception two years ago is in
danger of being eliminated from next
year's city budget.
. If the Housing Data Bank for the
Handicapped is shut down, program of-
ficials charge, over 3,500 families regis-
tered in the system will be denied access
to information about 30,000 apartments
for which federal construction and re-
habilitation funds have been allocated.
The data bank, the only program of
its type in the country, is run by Settle-
ment Housing Fund, a non-profit
housing development group. Its
$140,000 budget this year is provided
from the city's share of federal Com-
munity Development funds.
Over 20 handicapped individuals who
found apartments through the program
recently testified at a city hearing to
save it from the budget axe. It is only
the "outcry of the users of the service
that will keep it alive," said Carol
Weber, a coordinator for the program.
OJ.M.
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
Sales Tag Question
to Chelsea
T
HE FLAMES WERE FANNED
on both sides of the ongoing dis-
pute over the sales price of city-owned
buildings to their tenant-managers last
month. Although there is still no clear
indication of the resolution of the con-
troversy, a showdown is approaching as
buildings near a date with the Board of
Estimate this summer when that body
must choose whether or not to approve
sales prices that are significant depar-
tures from a general $250 per apartment
policy the board passed two years ago.
Tenants of 12 city-owned, tax fore-
closed tenements in the Clinton section
of Manhattan who insist the city must
stick to its earlier low income price got
a strong boost for their position when
the City Council unanimously passed a
resolution backing that demand. At the
same time, however, the sales question
spread to the neighborhood of Chelsea
CITY LIMITS/June-July '982
-just below Clinton on the West Side.
There, six buildings were submitted
into the sales pipeline which kicks off
with a community review, without
specific pricetags attached, just as the 12
Clinton buildings were over two months
ago. Tenants of the buildings, who
learned of the impending hearing just
Cwo weeks before it was held, told the
community board that a representative
of the city housing department told
them the cost of at least one building
would be the assessed valuation, or
$17 ,000 per apartment.
In April, the attorney for the Clinton
buildings was informed that prices for
those apartments would also be assessed
value, ranging from $9,000 to $13,000
each. Housing officials later disavowed
those terms. No such denial has been
issued in the case of the Chelsea
buildings.
6
In spite of the short notice, 150
people, led by the Chelsea Coalition on
Housing and the Chelsea Action
crow.ded into the Fulton Center
Auditorium on Ninth Avenue. They
demanded that the city live up to its past
promises and expressed fears of future
landlord harassment. In the period since
the six buildings were abandoned by
their landlords, they said, Chelsea has
become a b'pom town for real estate
speculators.
There are approximately 70 families
in city-owned buildings in Chelsea, at
least 90 percent of them Hispanic.
Many are elderly lmd all have low or
moderate incomes.
"Our people cannot afford to pay
any more," Sandy Matamoros of 188
Eighth Avenue, one of the six buildings,
told the hearing. "Six of our eight units
contain senior citizens living on fixed
incomes."
"A rent strike went on for six years in
our buildings before the limdlords
abandoned them," said Efrain
Rodriguez, President of the 322-24-26
West 17th Street Tenants Association.
Real estate speculation and landlord
crime have walked hand in hand in
Chelsea. Landlords in some cases have
imported thugs into empty apartments
to intimidate tenants in at least ten
Chelsea buildings in the last two years,
said representatives of the Coalition.
"We are still in need of major
systems repairs," insisted Bob Martin, a
tenant. "Especially plumbing. The city
promised these repairs when it took
over the buildings, but they were never
made," he said. "Without them, and
with a financing burden, we will not be
able to run the building."
The City Council resolution, intro-
duced by Manhatta.n Councilman-at-
Large Ed Wallace and 13 others, has no
direct impact on the sales decision
which will ultimately be decided by the
Board of Estimate. The resolution
specifically cited the 12 Clinton
buildings and called on the housing
department to promulgate clear guide-
lines for determining the sales prices of
other tenant-managed buildings.OTom
Robbins and Randolph Petsche
The SRO Gunsels
Only a few blocks away from the ivy-
league bastion of Columbia' University,
in a single-room-occupancy hotel
named the Arvia, a small band of
tenants is locked in a struggle to resist
harassment and violence from the
building management to drive them
from the hotel, which climaxed when a
former tenant's brother was gunned
down by a building employee in mid-
April.
The slaying of 24-year-old Santee
Grant during an argument on April 15
with Manuel Castello, who reportedly
told police he often did odd jobs for the
Arvia management, is only the deadliest
in a series of episodes since the owners,
Tafnet Corporation, bought the hotel at
605 West l12th Street in January.
One tenant's ribs were broken by a
rifle butt wielded by a building em-
ployee in late March, according to the
West Side SRO Law Project, which is
organizing the tenants and representing
them in Housing Court. And on the
night Grant was shot to death, police
were informed by tenants that several
building employees were shooting wild-
ly into the street and within the hotel
and then assaulted a tenant. of an SRO
hotel next door. Upon investigation, de-
tectives uncovered a cache of wea-
pons-including a sawed-off shotgun,
a .38 caliber revolver, and shotgun
shells-in the Arvia hotel management
office.
Though four men on the scene were
arrested for possession by police-two
Housing Court Study
A new study prepared bj' the
Department of Housing Preservation
and Office of 'Program
and Management Analysis, has revealed
that landlord-tenant nonpayment pro-
ceedings in Housing Court proceeded
more rapidly through the court calendar
BOCHRUN LOMELE
of them told police they were hotel em-
ployees-and tests later proved the guns
had been fired recently, the case was
dismissed by the District Attorney's of-
fice due to "insufficient legal
evidence," a spokeswoman said. The
men were then released and returned to
the hotel. Thugs have steadily been
moved to the hotel for some time now,
according to an organizer with the SRO
Law Project, who added that" Right now
there's about 20 of them, the same as
the number of tenants left."
and that 55 percent all housing viola-
tions reported to the court through
special pre-trial housing inspection
squads resulted in repairs being made
within eight months of trial. Started late
in 1979, the study, through detailed
data, asserts that the installation of the
special 25-member inspection squad has
strengthened the link between HPD's
code enforcement program and the
Housing Court. In this analysis of the
7
A court order issued by Civil Court
Judge Harriet George on April 28
forbade Ted Krain, an owner, and
Herman QlIezeada, the hotel manager,
from speaking to the tenants about
vacating the Arvia, ordered corrections
of the hundreds of health and safety vi-
olations, and re-connection of tele-
phone service and other amenities. Due
to the owners' repeated violations of the
court order, the city's Department of
Housing and Development (HPD) is
currently seeking a contempt of court
citation against the owners, who hope
. to empty the hotel for a luxury con-
version.
HPD is also seeking a 7-A court-
appointed administrator to run the ho-
tel, as well as a fine and jail sentence for
the owners.
One of the major backers of the
Arvia, Alan Sackman, has received a
total of $12 million in tax abatements
from the city administration J-51
program for his conversions of
Manhattan properties, including the
former Hamilton Hotel at 315 West
99th Street, now a luxury co-operative
called the Paramount, Council member
Ruth Messinger disclosed during a
demonstration at the Arvia following
Grant's murder.
In late May, a sit-in at Department
of Buildings Commissioner Irwin
Fruchtman's office by the SRO Tenants
Rights Coalition urged that a renova-
tion permit be denied to the owners of
the Arvia and demanded a moratorium
on all conversions of SRO hotels in the
city. 0 Sharon McDonnell
agency's housing code inspection and
enforcement strategies, one major
finding was that code compliance rose
from 38 to 64 percent when housing
judges issued orders that included
mandatory apartment repairs by land-
lords in order to receive back rent.
Copies are available from Citybooks,
2213 Municjpal Building, 1 Centre
Street, New York, New York 10007 for
$5.00 or $6.50 by mail. 0
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
Chinatown Developers May Lose Special Status
~ In a May I7 resolution that followed
~ months of controversy, the City Plan-
~ ning Commission challenged a develop-
)..
~ er's special permit to build two high-rise
~ condominium towers in Chinatown.
~ The unprecedented move will result in a
revocation of the permit, which had
earlier been approved by the planning
commission and the city Board of
Estimate, unless the developer disproves
charges that tenants were forced out of
a building demolished last year to make
way for the project.
The resolution cited the findings of a
lengthy Department of Investigation
report on the matter, prompted by a
community outcry last fall and released
in April. According to that report, the
developer, the Overseas Chinese Devel-
opment Corporation, operated the
building, 87 Madis0n Street, in a
manner "calculated to persuade the
tenants to vacate without compensa-
tion." The investigation revealed
evidence that tenants in the five-story
CITY LIMITS/JuneJuly 1982
walk-up were deprived of janitorial
services, heat and hot water, and other-
wise pressured to vacate, starting in the
fall of 1980. The Overseas Chinese
group purchased 87 Madison in early
1979. It was cleared of occupants as of
late August, 1981, and was razed about
two months later.
To begin demolition and proceed
with the project, the developer had to
assure the planning commission that the
former Madison Street tenants left
voluntarily, this under terms of a special
zoning district in the Manhattan Bridge
area. The 001 report called that
assurance into serious question,
forming the basis of the planning com-
mission'S action. Ground had not yet
been broken for the development,
known as East West Towers, when the
action was taken.
Scott Mollen, an attorney for the
Overseas Chinese company, denied that
the May resolution amounted to a
rescission of the East West Towers
permit. "There is no revocation," he
asserted. "You have to bear in mind
that we had no right of cross-examina-
tion. The planning commission didn't
have the benefit of our analysis, and
they did what they thought they had to
do-asked us to respond, and we will."
The attorney said in early June that the
development group had already notified
the city of its intention to respond in
writing to the planning commission's
motion. The response, Mollen said, will
document the developer's contention
that the residents of 87 Madison left the
premises of their own accord and were
duly compensated for relocation.
Meanwhile, several of those former
tenants joined with other Chinatown
residents and three local community
organizations in a related legal move.
The co-plaintiffs filed a state Supreme
Court suit challenging the legal basis of
the special zoning district that facili-
tated the East West Towers develop-
ment.
Naming the Board of Estimate, the
City Planning Commission and the
8
Overseas Chinese group as respondents,
the suit, initiated in late May, argues
against the legitimacy of the so-called
Special Manhattan Bridge District. The
special status allows for high rise
housing development, under certain
conditions, on the eastern edge of
Chinatown. When it was implemented
by the city last year, reportedly at the
urging of the Overseas Chinese com-
pany and other developers, the special
district legislation drew fire from
community residents who charged that
it would exacerbate an already escalat-
ing level of real estate speculation in the
area.
The legal challenge side-stepped those
considerations and stressed other legal
arguments. It charges that the Board of
Estimate's approval of the special dis-
trict last year was invalid because notice
about public hearings was legally insuf-
ficient; and that the special district legis-
lation was ill-considered, in that it
contained technical errors and awarded
excessive bonuses to developers who
agreed to provide community amenities
and substitute housing. The suit also
contends that the Overseas Chinese
company received its permit to uevelop
the Madison Street site through a
process that demonstrated the inability
of the city agencies involved to properly
administer such a district.
No final decision on the court chal-
lenge was expected for at least several
weeks after its initiation, and at least
one other project was expected to be
held in abeyance until the case is
resolved. That development, Henry
Street Towers, was still in the planning
stages when the legal action was started,
and city approval for it had not yet been
sought. The corporation formed to
develop the plan, Henry Street Part-
ners, reportedly has three officers of the
Helmsley-Spear real estate empire on its
board of directors. Cleariy, as the dual
legal actions involving .the Manhattan
Bridge Special District roll toward
resolution this summer, the stakes in
Chinatown are high.DT.L.


a
-.l

Q::
Tax-Break
Renewal
Stalled,
For Now
ti
By JIM MENDELL
__
A
GAME OF POLITICAL FOOT-
ball played in the halls of the State
Assembly in Albany pitted Mayor Koch
and his recruits against at least 25 New
York City Democrats. The legislative
ball the mayor tried to pass was the
city's major tax abatement program for
developers,the "J-51 program, which
was due for renewal June I, 1982.
But in a goal-line stand, the dissident
Democrats, led by Jerrold Nadler,
Richard Gottfried, Alexander "Pete"
Grannis and Frank Barbaro managed to
stall the tax bill past its renewal date.
In a closed meeting before the legisla-
tion was to be put to a vote, the New
York City Assembly members voiced
their opposition to the J-51 extension
unless certain conditions were' put on
the acceptance of buildings for future
tax abatements. They said that the pro-
gram has often been abused by the
developers. The city originally proposed
a three year extension of J-51, but faced ,
'with this Democratic end run, it agreed
to a 19 month extension (to coincide
with the start of the legislative session
February 1, 1984), with a study of the
program to be completed after one year.
Assemblyman Nadler drafted a series
of amendments based on other pro-
posed changes he, Gottfried and Gran-
nis had presented to the city last March.
These ammendments were to form the
basis for revisions in the J-51 program,
under which landlords and developers
can renovate their buildings and then re-
ceive up to a 20 year tax credit equal to
the cost of the rehabilitation. The pro-
gram also provides an exemption from
property tax increases caused by the
added value of the improvements.Un-
der the changes proposed, however, the
tax abatement measure would be limited
as follows:
Benefits would no longer be given for
conversion of single room occupancy
units with shared bathrooms and kitch-
ens to self-contained apartments. The
SRO Tenant Rights Coalition- claims
that over 31,000 people were emptied
from their hotel rooms onto the streets
over the past seven years through such
conversions .
The city office of Housing Preserva-
tion and Development would suspend
benefits to landlords who remove ten-
ants through harassment or who do
not operate their buildings in substatial
compliance with health, fire and safety
codes. Recipients of J-51 benefits who
displace low and moderate income ten-
9
ants would have to contribute to a hous-
ing program run by the city to relocate
them.
All J-51 benefits would be withheld
from future conversions of commercial
space to residential use. Too many jobs
have already been lost in the city,
Nadler maintained.
Developers would have to prove to
HPD's satisfaction that the tax benefits
are necessary to make the improvements
financially viable, or no abatements
would be granted. J-51 benefits would
no longer be granted' 'as 'of right" after
the work is done, but authorization
would be required beforehand, and be-
nefits over a certain amount would re-
quire Board of Estimate Approval.
While negotiation on these points
continued in Albany, J-51 abatements
were still being awarded. Whether any
of the proposed changes are adopted,
legislative sources said, the program will
be extended retroactively to June 1.
In their fight to amend the J -51 pro-
gram now, state legislators ,have used
their votes on the state budget as lever-
age. The city needs their votes to ap-
prove the $94 million tax surcharge
needed to help close a $170 million gap
in its fiscal 1983 budget which begins
July l. "I'll be damned if I'm going to
vote for an income tax surcharge, when
the city is giving away millions of dol-
lars in unneeded J-51 ' tax abatements,"
Nadler said.
In fiscal year 1982, the J-51 program
will cost the city $81 million in lost tax
revenues. Over the next five years, this
and similar tax abatement programs are
slated to cost over $800 million. Of the
J-51 tax abatements granted in 1982, 76
percent have been given for Manhattan
buildings. Many of the renovations in
affluent districts would have been done
anyway without tax giveaways, claim
critics of the program. 0
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
Staten Island's Sandy Ground
Holds On To History ByYVETIEMOOBE Photos by Laurie Peek
There's a blacksmith shop up the way from the Pedro's
house on frederick Road. Its wood is dark and worn from
the weather, use and years. The building leans and the roof
of the shop is sunken. High grass surrounds the shop and a
horse stable neighbors it. The road before the building is
paved, but little traffic passes it.
Despite the bucolic scene, this is New York City. It is a
community in Staten called Sandy Ground.
Sandy Ground is the oldest surviving community in New
York State founded by free Blacks. The original settlers in
the small village, located on the southwestern
tip of Staten Island, were oystermen by trade. They began
migrating to the New York bay area in the 1820's from
Snow Hill, Maryland, to escape the jurisdiction of a law
limiting their freedom from oystering. This was the
beginning of a surge of Black migration to the area from all
over the Delaware Peninsula, including Chesapeake Bay, .
Eastern Shore, Delaware and parts of Virginia.
For the last four years, descendants of those settlers have
been working to preserve their culture and the physical state
of their community, which is threatened by encroaching de-
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982 10
. The blacksmith's shop.
velopment in the area. That development, in the form of
garden apartment-style row houses, has intensified since the
recent opening of the West Shore Expressway, a route that
makes other parts of Staten Island and New York City more
accessible for area residents. .
To achieve their goal, members of the Black community
formed the Sandy Ground Historical Society and set the
wheels in motion to have Sandy Ground officially designat-
ed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Although historic designation would not technically pre-
vent the demolition or alteration of Sandy Ground's struc-
tures, it would probably affect the tactics of local develop-
ers. In addition, it might qualify some of the community's
elderly homeowners to receive property tax abatements.
"One of the reasons we got organized was that we
thought being on the National Register would help curtail
the development," said Yvonne Taylor, president of the his-
torical society and granddaughter o,f an oysterman. "We
found that it doesn't, but we still want to go on. We've
spoken with the developers. They're honest about the fact
that they want to make money. We just wish that they'd
build with the community in mind, but they're not. If they'd
build on larger tracts of land rather than building row
houses, it would keep in character with the community."
row houses-as long as the developers can hook the homes
into sewage treatment plants. Developers in the Sandy
Ground vicinity have already provided for that requirement,
so the country-like spaciousness of the community is jeo-
pardized.
Sandy Ground residents are quick to point out that they
don't spurn growth. They note that housing development
planned with the existing community of detached wood
frame homes in mind could help restore the area to its
pre-1963 state. That year, a huge fire wiped out much of the
then largely undeveloped southwestern part of Staten Island
and destroyed at least a dozen houses in Sandy Ground;
only four were rebuilt.
But the hope for such low density development seems
dim. The South Richmond plan, a set of city planning and
sanitation regulations for the area, permits developers to
build on 40 by 100 foot blocks of land-lots big enough for
Even under these circumstances, the people of Sandy
Ground are still hopeful that their efforts to preserve the
community's past can help to save it for the future. On
April 15, 1982, Sandy Ground's nomination as a historic
place was approved by the Commission of Registers, a state
agency. Once this receives approval from the State Depart-
ment of Parks and Recreation, it will be passed on to the
Keeper of the National Register in Washington, D.C. The
Sandy Ground Historical Society has at least six months to
wait before a final decision is made. While they wait, ne,,;,
construction continues around the tiny community. 0
Oystermen, Blacksmiths and
Economic
A
PREREQUISITE FOR NA-
tional registration is definition
of the community's boundaries and its
historical significance. To fulfill this re-
Quirement for Sandy Ground, a surface
archeological dig was conducted under
the guidance of the Society and the
State of Ncw York in the summer of .
1979. A two-volume set of the findings
is kept in the Staten Island Museum.
One of the greatest sources of infor-
mation during the dig was William
"Pop" Pedro, a life-long resident of
Sandy Ground who will be 101 years old
on Nov. 8,1982.
During the dig, team memberstra-
veled up and down local roads with
Pedro as he showed them sites where
houses and businesses were located. The
team dug on these sites and found just
what he said they'd find.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, sit-
ting on his sunpQrch, visitors found that
Pedro is lucid and has a memory that
can give any elephant a good run for its
money. He has seen a lot and remem-
bers as much, speaking casually of the
blizzard of 1888:
"You know the hotel down the
corner? That used to be a grocery store.
A man by the name of Henry Chapen,
he run that grocery store. That was
during the blizzard of '88."
"Do you remember that?"
"Who me? Sure, I remember that
blizzard! "
William "Pops" Pedro,
"What was it like?"
"Over the top of these hou.ses!" he
laughed. "I looked out, all I could see
was white snow. When you opened the
door, all the snow would come in the
door. It didn't last long. It come Quick
and left quick. But the way we had to
do was-some people couldn't get out
at all-so when you got out, you had to
shovel other people out. They dug a
tunnel through the snow!"
Pedro was never an oysterman, but
his father was and so he helped out
when he was a child. He was the fourth
oldest in a family of 16; two of his sis-
ters are still living. And, while he says
he never went to school much, he still
remembers that his grade school teacher
was Hester Purnell, and that she also
taught migrant oysterman to read when
they arrived in the north.
11
At 22 years of age Pedro married and
began a family of eight. He drove and
cared for work horses at a coal yard for
22 years to support his family. With the
advent of the automobile, horses were
replaced by trucks and he began driving
for a living. Oystering as a way of life
died out shortly after the turn of the
century. Industrial pollutants contamin-
ated the New York bay waters and they
were condemned by the city.
Pedro recalled the era when oystering
formed the economic base of Sandy
Ground, a time when most of the
community's men made their livelihood
dredging for the shellfish at the mouth
of the Arthur Kill:
'''It was in the middle of the bay out
there where they oystered. That's the
other side of the channel. Oh yeah, it
was big business one time. Sure, they
had a big plant for oysters, then
take 'em to New York, to the markets,
and sell 'em."
And while that activity was the main
source of cash for the communty,
Pedro said, it also provided more direct
benefits. "Conches, you don't know
what they are, do ya'?" he asked a
visitor, referring to a spiral-shaped
shellfish once common to local waters.
"We used to catch them, man, and eat
them', sure. We used to get them when
(the oystermen) would go out dredgin'
with the boats and man, when they
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982
come up we had them. They didn't go
with the oysters. We'd bring them
home, wash 'em off good and put them
in a pot of boiling water, let them boil,
then take 'em out and clean 'em. Man,
that was good eatin' .. . Then crabs used
to be a great thing. Used to go along,
and when they caught, the soft shell
crabs, we used to fry 'em up."
Besides plentiful seafood, Pedro
remembered,the Sandy Grounders' diet
was once supplemented by fresh
produce from farms that surrounded
the settlement, as well as vegetable
gardens that virtually everyone
maintained. He lamented the way things
have changed: ' ''Now, you go into a
store, you buy everything out of the
store and eat it. We never thought about
goin' to the store and buyin' a can of
beans."
Other land-based food-the animal
variety-was readily available as well,
at least in cold weather, Pedro recalled.
"When we was growin' up-course we
don't have winters like we used
to-boy, that bay used- to freeze up and
the wild game and everything would
'come from Jersey over here. Sure, we
used to sleigh ride down the Arthur Kill.
And we used to be runnin' away with
rabbits, man, opossum, pheasant. Oh
man, they all used to come across the
bay."
Despite these indications of virtual
self-sufficency at Sandy Ground, its
oldest resident said, many community
members sought employment else-
where. "A lot of 'em would drive
teams, a lot of 'em would drive trucks,"
Pedro noted, referring to his own
principal trade. "Some of tbe young
ones would work in New York. One
man here, he was up in the Customs
House-that was Jake Friendly ... The
women folk, they'd go out and wash
and iron for people." Several small
businesses that serve9 the area died out
with their proprietors, he said. A
blacksmith shop and florist remain
active.
Also still active is the community's
church, which sits just across from
Pedro's current residence on Blooming-
dale Road. And, he said, it remains so
even for many former residents: "Some
of them moved out to other parts of the
Island. Some of 'em moved to Jersey,
but they still come to this church here."
Pedro, who remembers the building's
proceeds off Bloomingdale Road, less than a mile from Sandy Ground.
construction in his boyhood, said its
first minister, Walter T. Biddle,
preached downstairs while the upper
floor was built. And, he said, the
church provided an outdoor meeting
place for Sandy Ground's faithful.
"Over right back here," he said,
pointing to the church grounds, "we
used to have big prayer meetings in
olden times. Have a big tent spread out
there. Have it for a week or two and
man, this place'd be alive!"

There is, in fact, a certain sadness in
Pedro's view of the changes at Sandy
Ground. "This used to be a pretty place
at one time," he recalled, implying that
those days were gone. "Olden times,
you'd help one another, but now you
don't," he added.
Despite this apprehensiori, William
Pedro is, above all, a survivor. "I
escaped three wars," he. said. "Ifthe
Spanish-American War had lasted one
more day I would've gone, 'cause I was
all packed up and ready to go. But it
was all over." That was a blessing for
him and, perhaps, for the living history
of Sandy Ground. o Yvette Moore and
Tim Ledwith,
Community Boards
in the Buffer Zone By SUSAN BALDWIN
T
ODAY, FIVE YEARS AFfER A CITY CHARTER
amendment mandated increased responsibilities to
New York City's 59 community boards with an eye to
bringing government closer to the people by making it more
accountable and responsible, a recent citywide survey shows
that the boards are overworked, their staffs underpaid, and
their mission principally to run interference between the
neighborhoods and city hall.
"We're a glorified buffer, insulating city agencies from
community ire," said Douglas Harnett, district manager of
Community Board #12 in Southeastern Queens, as he
described his board's responsibilities under the Koch admin-
istration's com;ept of local, decentralized government. .
13
"We're the little city halls that [then Mayor] John Lindsay
talked about in 1966," added Herbert Samuels, the manager
for Community Board #4 in the povery-ravaged South
Bronx. "The main difference now, however, is that there's
no money in the treasury." In this board area alone,
Samuels pointed out, two put of every three people are
unemployed, and one out of every two is on some form of
public assista-nce.
As city hall becomes more remote and less responsive to
local needs, community residents have turned to local
community boards for help with all their problems. The
community board office has become a one-stop service
center for everything from filling potholes to cleaning up
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
vacant lots and sealing unsafe buildings. "People don't go
downtown to demonstrate anymore," said one defensive
board employee. "They come here instead because someone
told them we're a big bureaucracy that can handle
everything. We want to help, but we can't solve all the city's
problems."
Under the revised City Charter approved by the electorate
in November, 1975, and enacted January 1,1977, the decen-
tralized community boards are charged with three basic
responsibilities: to monitor the delivery of essential
city services at the local level; set budget priorities for the
allocation of tax dollars; and [eview land u ~ e and develop-
ment proposals. And, until July I, 1982, when a $15,000
increase will take effect, each board was supposed to carry
out these duties on an annual budget of $70,000.
"The community boards are worth their weight in gold
and city hall knows it," asserted Barbara Kuchuk, a five-
year district manager veteran in Board #9 in Queens. "We
save the city megabucks. The city counts on this because
that's our job-to make the city look good."
But a major drawback with the community boards'
demanding and sophisticated role in government is their
inability to put teeth in their recommendations. Their
mandated powers are purely advisory.
'We Were Nothing'
"Prior to the Charter [revision in 1977], we were
nothing," said George Stein, chairman of Community
Board #14 in the Rockaways in Queens for the past five
years and a member for the past decade. "This change was a
real boost but it didn't go far enough. We can never make
clear-cut decisions because we're not part of the decision-
making process. We need more clout."
Many other board representatives echo Stein, but most
stop short of calling for the election of the now-appointed
board members. "We're running around in circles just
fulfilling our advisory duties," said one harried board
assistant in Brooklyn. "Can you imagine what bedlam it
would be if aliSO board members were elected? We'd have
50 bosses for starters!"
Hilda Regier, chairwoman of Board #4 in the Chelsea-
Clinton area on Manhattan's West Side, does not share
these fears. Calling her board the "local City Council,"
Regier said, "We're not just local hausfraus making
decisions for our neighborhood today. We' re very serious
about our board responsibilities. Frankly, we do a lot more
for the people around here than some of our local elected
politicians. And the people know it. They know who we are.
Certainly, the worst thing in the world would not be the
election of board members."
Charter Revision
The enactment of the 1975 Charter revision did not create
the community boards which trace their origins back 30
years to former Mayor Robert F. Wagner's administration.
But it was not until 1977 that the boards were allow(!d
budgets to underwrite local community offices run by a full-
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982 14
time district manager with a back-up staff of part-time
employees and volunteers.
Appointed by the local borough president in consultation
with the city councilmembers in each of the city's 59 board
districts, the boards, with a membership of up to 50, are
unsalaried. Half of the members are appointments recom-
mended by the councilmembers, while the other half are
selected at the borough PIes!dent's discretion.
Each member serves for two years and must be a district
resident or someone who has an interest-a business proper-
ty-in the area. In addition, the district's councilmembers
are non-voting members of the board. The Charter limits to
25 percent of each board the appointed members who can be
city employees. Critics claim, however, that this regulation
is often abused. Also, under the amended Charter,
"Persons with a residence or significant interest in the
community who are not members of the board" can be
members of the board's committees, but each committee
chairman must be a board member.
District managers serve at the pleasure of the community
boards. According to the Community Assistance Unit
(CAU), the arm of the mayor's office that provides
technical assistance, training, and information to the
boards, district managers are "complaint takers, municipal
managers, ombudsmen, information sources, commuftity
organizers, mediators, advocates and much more." In
addition to facilitating the operation of the local office and
cutting through the bIlreaucratic channels at city hall, they
chair the required monthly meeting of the district service
cabinet which includes local supervisors from the city's
service agencies, (e.g., police, sanitation, transportation,
parks, housing, human resources) to make sure there are no
problems with service delivery in the board district.
On the borough level, district managers serve on a
borough board and cabinet chaired by the local borough
president and supervised by the director of community
boards. These sessions are also devoted to solving the
problems of service delivery, land use or planning that cut
across community district lines.
"A lot of the boards feel frustrated because they think
they're not being listened to," said Denise Scheinberg,
director of the CAU, who has been serving as a board
expeditor in the mayor's office for the last four-and-one-
half years. "It is hard to separate the boards' actual strength
from their presumed strength, but if they are utilized as they
were designed," she continued, "they can be a
tremendously forceful funnel to get through to the
appropriate agencies." Scheinberg and her assistant, Harry
Ness, stressed that the city is paying closer attention to the
boards at budget time, and more of the boards' budget
requests are being adopted.
A number of the community boards, particularly in the
city's more stable neighborhoods, are pleased with their
treatment at city hall. "We don't live in a perfect society,
but we do have input in setting our priorities. It's impossible
to get everything we want but there's no wall between us and
city hall," said Edward Rappaport, chairman of Board 12 in
Brooklyn. "Koch does a good job by us, and we're lucky to
have Tom Cuite as our councilman," he continued, noting
that his area, which includes Borough Park, is primarily
middle class and that, so far, his board has been able to keep
up living standards.
"The problems of1iouth Brooklyn are not the same as the
South Bronx, and !)y their very nature must be treated
differently," Rappaport asserted, adding, "There is no
d o u b ~ about it. We have a good solid voice in city
government. "
But another Brooklyn board with a substantial low
income population-Board #5 in the East New York
section-has experienced a different reception at city hall.
According to De-Mecia Wooten-Bryant, the board's
assistant district manager, the city's Human Resources
Administration placed a decentralized men's shelter in a
vacant community school in October, 1981, without
consulting the board first. "Apparently, they were not
aware or did not care that this site-P.S. 63-was slated for
a much needed industrial park," she explained, noting that
it was the "consensus of the board that the city did this
because we are a poorer neighborhood."
In order to protect some of the weaker boards in several
low income neighborhoods from being lost in the shuffle
downtown, the Community Service Society is providing
intensive technical assistance in a pilot program to four
disadvantaged boards-Board #3 in the Charlotte Street
section of the South Bronx, Board #11 in East Harlem, and
Board #3 in the Bedford Stuyvesant section, as well as
Board #5, in Brooklyn.
"These boards don't have the political clout. They feel
overwhelmed, as if they're fighting a losing battle, but we
are coaching them to get an independent, critical analysis of
their situation, to learn how to barter," said Eva
Handhardt, a former liaison with the Department of City
Planning who is supervising this special project. "We don't
want to promise that the economic and political realities will
change, but we do feel that decentralized community
decisions, particularly in cases as severe as these, should not
be based on political clout. Rather, some higher order
should prevail. They deserve better representation and
treatment at city hall."
Fear Reduced Role
One of the areas of responsibility that the boards,
particularly in swing neighborhoods, are afraid to lose falls
under the category of the Uniform Land Use Review Pro-
cedure (ULURP). In order to expedite the sale of the
abundant tax-foreclosed (in rem), city-owned property,
Councilman Leon Katz, Democrat of Brooklyn, at the
request of the mayor, has introduced legislation in the City
Council to exempt these in rem parcels from the boards'
mandated ULURP responsibility. Instead, if this Charter
amendment, known as Intro. #963, becomes law, notifica-
tion of scheduled land disposition would be sent directly to
the affected board and the City Planning Commission 30
days prior to the action in the Board of Estimate, thus
depriving the board of its right to land use review in this
matter.
Even boards in areas where there is little or no tax-fore-
15
closed property oppose this proposed Charter change. They
contend it would water down one of the few major powers
currently held by the boards.
Martin Gallem, vice chairman of the CPC, hopes his
commission will have a chance to comment formally on this
amendment before the City Council takes any action. "It's
very crucial. It would be tragic if communities missed this
opportunity for major neighborhood planning."
Deputy Mayor Nathan Leventhal, on the other hand,
supports the removal of the in rem property disposition
from the board's ULURP, stressing that the property under
the proposed streamlined method will be maintained for
residential purposes under the city's alternative management
housing program and thus "will save each board from going
over those properties one-by-one." ~
Another legislative proposal for reducing the boards' ~
input in ULURP would foreshorten the boards' overall e
ULURP timetable from 60 days to 30 or 45. Under current ~
regulations, the boards, CPC, and the Board of Estimate 0
each have 60 days to review each application. 13
"If they start tampering with any of the aspects of ~
'<:
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
ULURP, this could be the beginning of the lessening of the
boards' other powers and then what will we be left with?"
asked Deborah Hall, district manager of Board #10 in
Central Harlem, who stressed that she was expressing her
own, not her board's, opinion.
Reversed Decisions
Although most of the boards assert that city hall upholds
their decisions on a substantial number of their land use
decisions, they still criticize occasions when the
administration has overturned controversial board deCISion
after the local boards conducted lengthy hearings at the
district level.
Some recent prominent reversals of local board policy
include:
City hall's conducting of the lottery of 13 Harlem
brownstones in February, 1982, after hundreds of local
residents showed up to support decisions against the lottery
by both affected Harlem boards-#9 and 100at the Board
of fstimate in July, 1981. ., .
The approval of high cost artlsts housmg on the Lower
East Side in Community Board #3's domain after the board
repeatedly went on record against it, beginning with a
resolution last summer. .
Informally announcing plans to overturn several long-
standing local board positions endorsing a continued mora-
torium on the sale of in rem property by the auction process.
Almost four years ago, Community Boards #3 and 7 in
Manhattan mapped out plans for the city-owned properties
in their districts, but Housing Commissioner Anthony
Gliedman recently told City Limits that he would not honor
this commitment.
The overturning last year by city hall and the
Department of Ports and Terminals of Manhattan
Community Board #6's ten-point proposal representing the
community's recommendations for the commercial and
residential pier development of the controversial 18-acre
Riverwalk project along the East River between 23rd and
16th Streets. According to Board Chairman Lester Wall-
man, who served as chairman of the board's waterfront
committee in developing the community plans for the site,
the board has commitments from several members of the
Board of Estimate to turn down city hall's final plans for
the multi-million scheme because of its refusal to involve
the local board in the planning.
In the spirit of replacing political favoritism with merit
and fair representation, several of the board communities
would like to see appointments that better reflect the
geographic and ethnic character of the local board district.
In one case-Board #3 in Manhattan-a faction of the
community is looking into the possibility of bringing a
lawsuit challenging the board's current composition which
includes only a handful of Black, Latin and Chinese
appointees in an area where these groups predominate.
"The boards are a mixed bag, and there is no neat solu-
tion that can be adopted for all 59 districts," said David
Lebenstein, assistant director of Interface, a nonprofit,
private organization that has a contract with the city to
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982 16
provide training and technical assistance for the community
boards. A former Board #7 chairman in Queens, Lebenstein
was a founding member in 1977 of a now defunct citywide
coalition that attempted to provide usef I information to all
the communities in order to avoid s<1me of today's
problems.
"At best," Lebenstein said, "a board has a very positive
impact on its surroundings and can push for better quality
of city services and budget priorities. At the worst," he
added, "it is no worse than a local political club taking care
of business . .. There is plenty of room for improvement on
the board level, but face it, just a few years ago under
[Mayor] Beame, there were not even funds to cover running
the board offices properly."
Some of the boards are effective because they have
volunteers who can spend full-time working at the time-con-
suming board tasks. Others have the expertise and political
connections to pull strings at the top to improve the delivery
of services in their neighborhoods. This is not the case,
however, in less fortunate districts where board members
work full-time and lack government contacts. But all of the
board members interviewed agree on one thing: the boards'
role must be more clearly delineated. In their view, the
boards must be seen as an entity representing strong,
independent community sentiment and power and must be
respected and trusted by both the community and city hall in
order to be more effective.
And if the boards are to function effectively as "little city
halls," members and staff maintain, they must be treated
accordingly. They must do more than process paperwork
and juggle the delivery of services. They must start . to
participate in the long-range needs assessment and planning
for their communities. They must also be given the
authority to function as something more than a
neighborhood ci vic association. 0
Four community boards in tbe South Bronx coUld
be in danger of losing their separate dist us and
budgets. as, with the reporting of the 1 .
Census, they have lost a significant portiO,n of their
population.
Under the amended 1975 City Charter, community
boards were to serve populations ranging fr(}m a
minimum of 100,000 to a maximum of 250,000
The smallest is Community Board #2witbl4,OOO.
The others falling below the 100,000 minimum are:
Board lit. 78,000; Board #3.53,000; andBqard 116.
64.800. >
The Community Assistance Unit is takingtbi$
under advisement
c'Wedon't know what will happen. We ca.Jl only
bope (oUbe best," said Cantillo, district
tnaaager in Board #2. "One solution would be to
create a special business district smaller than tbe
lOO,OOOminimum as they did for the area in Man-
hattan below 59th Street.
A.nother would be to decrease each budget
ill acoiltance with tllelo$s of population. tD
I
Threat to Rent Control is Renewed By TIM LEDWITH
In mid-June, while local tenants or-
ganizations were still coming to terms
with the Reagan Administration's pro-
posals to cut $23 billion .from federal
low income housing programs, a fresh
threat to renters loomed on the national
horizon-and tbis one came from Capi-
tol Hill. For the third year running,
legislation pending, in the House of Re-
presentatives was threatened whh am-
endments whose effect would be to re-
strict federal housing aid to cities with
certain forms of rent regulation.
This year's anti-rent control amend-
ment, like a similar measure proposed
in the House in 1980, was initiated by
Rep. Chalmers Wylie of Columbus,
Ohio, a municipality unburdened by
rent control. The current Wylie amend-
ment would deny certain federal
housing funds to cities which have rent
controls which ,can be applied to newly
constructed or substantially rehabilita-
ted apartments. Beyond this, the mea-
sure states that any locality which enacts
controls on new rental units within 20
years after applying for federal aid from
the housing program involved would
ha,ve to repay to Washington whatever
funds it has received.
If adopted, the measure could affect
cities in New York, New Jersey,
California and Massachusetts.
Although interpretations of , the
amendment's scope vary, it is generally
believed that it would penalize New
York City, if implemented. Rent stabil-
ization can be extended to newly built or
rehabilitated apartments here, but vol-
untarily and in exchange for property
tax abatements,
In the event of the amendment's
passage ,housing aid contained in legisla-
tion recently introduced by Rep.
Charles Schumer of Brooklyn and Sen.
Chris Dodd of Connecticut would be
withheld from New York and other lo-
calities. The Schumer-Dodd proposal
would provide subsidies for the con-
struction and rehabilitation of
60-100,000 units of low and moderate
income housing nation-wide, authoriz-
ing a total expenditure of $1.3 billion. It
would provide aid, in the form of
grants, loans and interest subsidies, to
cities demonstrating "a severe shortage
of decent rental housing opportunities
for families and individuals without
other reasonable and affordable
housing opportunities in the private
market."
Observers noted that such circum-
stances, when characterized as "a hous-
ing emergency," constitute the legal ra-
tionale for many existing rent regulation
systems.
This year's Congressional drive
against those systems began in April
when Wylie first tried to attach his
amendment to the Schumer-Dodd
proposal. At that time, both the House
Housing Subcommittee and the House
Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs
Committee passed the housing bill
itself but defeated the Wylie initiative.
As a result, the Ohio representative's
only recourse was to propose the
amendment during the full House de-
bate in the bill. That debate, part of an
overall consideration of this year's $29
billion spending authorization bill for
housing programs, was scheduled to
begin in the House on June 15.
Tenant observers in Washington said
the Schumer-Dodd proposal might face
a close vote when it hit the floor. If the
bill passed, they projected, the Wylie
amendment would have a good chance
of succeeding as well (Wylie's previous,
more punitive anti-rent control measure
passed by a wide margin jn the less con-
servative 1980 House). Said Cushing
Dolbeare of the National Low Income
17
Housing Coalition, which was monitor-
ing the process, "It will be a tough fight
at best."
Members of the National Tenants
Union joined that fight as the measure
moved closer to a vote, lobbying House
legislators on both sides of the aisle to
oppose the amendment, both as an
attack on local municipal control and
an affront to renters. But their efforts
were matched by those of the National
Multi-Housing Council, a realtors' and
builders' group that has hired two full-
time "insiders" to promote the real es-
tate industry's line in Congress. The
Council's hired guns are Larry Simon
and Tony Friedman, both of whom
were high officials in the federal De-
partment of Housing and Urban Dev-
elopment during the Carter Adminis-
tration.
If their influel1e prevails and the
Wylie measure passes in the House, the
only hope left for tenant advocates will
be to defeat the amendment during the
House-Senate conference in which dif-
ferences in housing legislation from the
two legislative bodies must be rectified.
And if, surviving that lengthy legisla-
tive process, the measure is signed into
law, tenant observers are convinced that
the national real estate lobby will have
"a foot in the door" in its effort to
undermine a broader range of local
tenant protections. 0
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982
Fig. 4.1. Simplified fallout patterns showing total radiation doses that would be received by persons on
the surface and in the open for the entire 14 days following the surface bursting of 5050 megatons on the targets
indicated, if the winds at all elevations blew continuously from the west at 25 mph.
70

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THE CIVIL DEFENSE FRAUD
The Administration's civil defense plans mean less protection, not more, says a
prominent scientist. And that's based on the government's own studies. '
By BARRY COMMONER
T
HE REAGAN ADMINISTRA-
tion's new civil defense program is
an integral part of its nuclear war strate-.
gy. The civil defense program is the do-
mestic side of a policy that says nuclear
wars are winnable-hence they must be
survivable.
Even were there the slimmest of
chances that the country could survive a
nuclear attack, the Administations's
program would reduce that possibility
even further.
The civil defense program will guar-
antee that even a relatively small nuclear
, attack -one specifically targeted at key
productive centers-will nevertheless
end in total destruction of U.S. society.
The simple, grim fact is that the civil
defense makes us not less vulnerable to
the impact of a nuclear attack, but more
vulnerable. Moreover, it will greatly
increase the danger of nuclear war by
creating the tragic illusion tbat the
country could .survive it.
The facts of the analysis are not new.
CITY LlMITS/JuneJuly 1982
They are contained in government re-
ports prepared as long ago as 1963 and
1970 which demonstrated the futilit y of
civil defense. Yet, shockingly, as the
Reagan Adminis t ration has unearthed
the dormant civil defense policy, it has
kept this information buried.
The basic concept arrived at in two
government studies is that U.S. society
can be destroyed, not only by a massive
attack which kms everyone outright.
but by a smaller attack which leaves
some people alive but destroys all the
resources needed to survive.
As long as more people survive than
there are surviving resources to support
them, the ensuing desperate competi -
tion will simply destroy the fragments
of the social fabric that remain after the
initial attack and ensure that all will per-
ish. Ironically. the best chance-how-
ever slight and nightmarish-of social
survival would follow an attack in
which there were few survivors, so that
the remaining resources would be suffi-
18
cient to support them.
What this Administration knows, but
has chosen not to reveal, is that a policy
which protects people but not industrial
and agricultural resources worsens ra-
ther than improves the already very
small probability that U.S. society and
its people would survive the initial im-
pact of a nuclear attack.
A 1963 Rand Corporation study for
the U.S. Air Force showed that an at-
tack as smalI as 400 megatons could de-
stroy all port facilities; a 1,500 megaton
attack could wipe out refineries; 3,000
megatons could eliminate 90 percent of
heavy industry. A 7,500 megaton attack
would burn out 50 percent or our vege-
tation, while a 23,000 megaton attack-
attainable by present armaments-
would destroy 90 to 95 percent of the
ability to raise crops and livestock.
Yet, the most seve(e of these attacks,
without civil defense would
leave 20 percent of the population
alive- a considerable excess of
survivors over surviving resources. The
Rand report points out that such an
imbalance minimizes the chance that the
remaining population will survive very
long. An enemy strategy designed to
mlOlmlze "surviving capacity per
capita," the report said, would leave as
many survivors as possible. It states:
"An attacker who adopted such mini-
mization (of survival) as the criterion
for his target strategy would want to
avoid attacking target areas with large
populations. " .
The Administration's civil defense
program is designed to "double the
number of Americans that would sur-
vive from a major Soviet attack on the
United States, "would only worsen the
impact of a Soviet strategy designed to
"mInimize survival capacity."
In 1970 a massive study by the
Stanford Research Institute confirmed
and extended these earlier conclusions.
It showed, for example, that an attack
on the U.S. with 'only 500-600 megatons
of weapons (directed at the country's 79
largest metropolitan areas and eight of
the 34 industrial sectors critical for sur-
vival) would result in the destruction of
about 65 percent of industry as a whole
and 97 percent or more of the industries
critical for survival. About 55 percent
of the U.S. population would survive
(in the absence of civil defense).
Again, this study confirms that a de-
liberately targeted attack on the U.S. is
likely to destroy the population not only
by directly killing and injuring a large
part of it, but also by destroying the in-
dustrial and agricultural base that
would be needed to support the sur-
vivors.
The Administration's plan is based
on immediate, active measures to "pro-
tect" the population by evacuating
people from urban areas. It also sug-
gests that somewhere down the line, the
government might decide to undertake
the huge job of protecting the nation's
crucial industrial base from attack. The
fact that this, too, is a tragic exercise in
futility has been known since the Rand
report two decades ago. This report
concluded that after even a relatively
small attack of about 6000 megatons,
" ... viability could be achieved only
with the help of pre-attack preparations
that would essentially amount to creat-
ing an underground economy suffi-
ciently large and well-stocked to meet
the subsistence needs of the population
after the attack."
The cost of such "preparation" was
estimated at about $600 billion in
1963-which amounts to about $1.9
trillion in 1981 dollars.
This huge effort would, in any case,
be pointless because there is no compar-
able way to protect agriculture.
According to a 1960 report by the
Stanford Research institute for the U.S.
Office of Civil and Defense Mobiliza-
tion, a 23,000 megaton attack would
reduce agricultural output by 90
percent. Stated in the brutal simplicity
of nuclear technology, this could al-
low-optimistically-the survival of 10
percent of the population. But these
survivors would need to be so heavily
devoted to food production as to leave
no one to work the underground facto-
ries-which would, in turn, be needed
to provide crucial industrial resources to
support agriculture. Clearly, even if in-
dustry were protected, the massive de-
struction of agricultural capacity would
destroy any hope of recovery.
Finally, there is the simple but pOT-
tentous question of whether civil de-
19
fense could protect the ecosystem-our
society's basic support system-from
nuclear attack. A nuclear war would en-
velop the ecosystem in radiation and
fire; crucial ecological cycles would be
broken; the soil-on which agrici.Jlture
depends-would be massively eroded;
with the protective ozone layer probably
destroyed, what life remained would be
bathed in lethal ultraviolet radiation.
If the civil defense officials would go
back to their files and absorb the signifi-
cance of what has long been known
about the tragic futility of attempting to
protect the nation from the impact of
nuclear war, and how dangerous it is to
promote the misleading idea that such
protection is possible, they could save
the government a great deal of money.
More than that, we could tum our full
attention to the only rational way to
survive nuclear war-which is to abolish
iL D
Dr. Barry Commoner is Director of the
Center for the Biology of Natural Sys-
tems at Queens College. This article is
adapted from remarks he made before
the Military and Civil Defense Subcom-
mittee of the New York Assembly on
19, 1982.
By TOM ROBBINS
First of Two Articles
T
HE co-oP BANK MOVED LAST MONTH. IT
packed up the files in its government-leased offices and
headed for five floors of a new private building two blocks
further up Washington's Connecticut Avenue.
That public to private shift is one more stage in the trans-
formation of the National Consumer Cooperative Bank
over the past year from a government-sponsored and
subsidized lender to cooperative enterprises into a private
lending institution, tethered to a relatively small amount of
start-up capital. Carving an identity for the bank as both
fiscally capable in the period of high interest rates while still
making innovative loans is a tough proposition. And the
bank's attempts thus far have generated a good deal more
controversy and criticism than applause.
"There are four words in our name," bank president
Carol Greenwald is fond of saying, "and our last name is
bank." Some co-ops and their advocates hear a threat
rather than a promise in this description; others take it as a
hopeful sign of the coming of age of an institution notice-
ably burdened with notions and ideological bag-
gage. Whether threat or promise, 'neither one has been
carried out so far. But the rumblings have been in the open
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982 20
for some time, and many are waiting for the real Co-op
Bank to stand up.

"The National Consumer Cooperative Bank was one of
those things Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Congress
created for the enjoyment of the new left, " sneered the Wall
Street Journal last year after bank president Greenwald
snuck $60 million that had been targeted for cuts out of the
U.S. Treasury and deposited it in a Chicago bank.
But what Dow Jones viewed as a radical lark was really an
act of desperation. Even before the passage of the National
Consumer Cooperative Bank Act of 1978 the institution has
been steadily whittled away. From the billion dollar bank
en"'sioned by its fashioners which would provide vital
infusions of capital and technical assistance to the often
unorthodox businesses rebuffed by regular lenders, it was
reduced at birth to $500 million with $100 million for low
income low interest loans. Under Carter, the bank was
pared to $300 million and $60 million, while the Reagan
Congress allowed the bank to escape with a license to
continue operating, but under the most onerous terms: the
$200 million it had received, including $20 million for Title
II low income loans,had to be paid back beginning in 1990.
The bank's mission has been trimmed along with its
budget. Low interest loans and capital advances to co-ops
serving communities of the poor, originally a major aspect
of the bank's role, have been jettisoned for the time being.
The Office of Self-Help Development and Technical
Assistance was axed in June, 1981, as the bank anticipated
its cuts. Of the $20 million allocated for low income loans
some $9 million is uncommitted and will go into a new
Development Corporation the bank is soon to spin off.
It was only through pluck and an exceptionally well-
mounted lobbying campaign that turned Reaganites like
New York Senator Al D' Amato into bank boosters that the
bank eluded Administration attempts to snuff it.
The compromise solution gave the bank what it needed
most-its life; but the conditions on which the deal was
struck was not unlike a marooned sailor left on an ocean
atoll with half a jug of water.
. .
If, in the wake of those attacks, the leadership of the bank
is a little paranoid, it could be understandable. It is
paranoid, and not a little of its current pain is self-inflicted.
Along with the demise of the self-help office went some of
the most committed of the bank's staff: many of those in
that sector had themselves emerged from cooperatives and
had arrived at the bank flush with the hope they could
,
finally put some fiscal muscle behind cooperative plans.
The most distressing aspect of their departure wasn't the
cuts, but that many of them left in the wake of a union
organizing drive launched in the teeth of the cuts early Jast
year. Seeking some form of job security, 26 staff employees
formed an organizing committee, linked up with ,a local of
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees and announced to bank they wanted to hold
a certification election.
Bank management responded by refusing to meet with
the organizing group, barred any voluntary recognition of
the union on its part (a step which avoids the lengthy
certification process) and hired Harry Burton of the law
firm Morgan, Lewis and Bockius. That outfit has been
achieving a widespread notoriety through its portfolio of
union-busting tactics adapted to white collar union
organizing.
The first tactic of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius is [0 stall,
say those who have witnessed their counseling of
management. And it took several months for the bank to
announce that it wanted to go to the National Labor
Relations Board to determine whether the public/private
bank fell under its jurisdiction, although neither side felt it
did. The bank also challenged the status of more than
seventy of the 160 bank employees as management and privy
to confidential information.
In the interim, the layoffs began. Some pro-union
workers were given marginal performance ratings, others
saw their jobs reorganized and themselves "riffed"-white
collar jargon for layoff or Reduction in Force. By May,
1982, just two of the 26 original organizers remained.
The reaction to the bank's anti-union attitude has been
shock and hurt. "None of us were great lovers of unions,"
noted Ruth Nazario, a union activist who worked in the self-
help office and then in the real estate section until she was
"riffed" this past February. "Some of us were dubious
because they had been in unions before," she said. Coming
from New York, she knew unions primarily from the
obstacles they place in the way of self-help housing. Neve\:-
theless, as a result of what many saw as arbitrary and
capricious personnel policies, as well as a system of rumors
which seemed to hold more weight, than any inter-office
memos, there was substantial interest in the unior.. "The
union's complaint was never salaries," insisted Nazario.
"We acknowledged that, with the cuts, there would be
layoffs," said one wo"rker who has survived at the bank and
didn't want to jeopard'ize that by using his name. "But in a
government office, it would have been simple: last hired
would be the first fired. There wouldn't have to be the
rumors, the tattling and the alliances behind the back."
Although the bank agreed to elections last November, the
dispute over eligible employees-now narrowed to 30 of the
remaining employees has still delayed its occurrence.Those
pro-union employees remaining still say the bank is causing
the delay. So far, none of the discharged workers have filed
charges against the bank for unfair labor practices, althougb
several say they are it. One reason for this, a
worker said, is that management has threatened to hold up
final paychecks, delay turnover of holdings in the thrift
savings plan unless departing employees sign affidavits
promising not to sue. Others, it was said, told their
marginal performance ratings would be removed. "Finally,
you're just whipped," suggested one current bank
employee. "You know they are going to keep it up."
Bank officials deny outright any anti-union animus. The
Morgan, Lewis and Bokius firm was retained, says bank
Executive Vice President Mitch Rofsky, because the bank
wanted "to know what our rights were. ' Frankly, no one '
here knew the first thing about labor law." Any suggestion
that layoffs were doled out on the basis of union
sympathies, Rofsky said, was "absurd."
But with the survival ratio of union activities hovering at
less than ten percent, and a union election still somewhere
off in the future after over a year of attempts, the bank's
record is hardly the image of what might be expected from
an institution aimed at supporting cooperative enterprises,
many of which were launched by this country's labor move-
ment.
George Schechter, director of Coordinated Housing
Services in New York City which manages several large,
union-sponsored housing cooperatives was elected to the
bank's board as a representative of the housing sector last
year. He was "very distressed" about the way the bank was
handling the union issue, he says. His attempts to raise the
issue on the board, though, were rebuffed. "They were anti-
union," he said. "I was ready to pursue it but there was very
little support." Although he sees the union as a "side issue"
for the bank, Schechter insisted the bank's role was clear'
"You don't bring in expert counsel unless you're out to beat
the union. They beat the union: Essentially that's what they
did."
"It's a very sad story," mused one employee. "Somehow
it seems as if to get a union would mean they weren't giving
good benefits, weren't being treated fairly. This they
\
couldn't stand."
If its sUddm confrontation with its own restive staff
reflects the bank's internal paradox, then its attempts to
forge a loan policy that allows both cooperative growth and
dependable income are the external signs of that conflict. In
its own way, creating that policy has been every bit as
difficult-and as painful. 0
21
In the next issue City Limits examines the difficulties and
contradictions the Co-op Bank faces as it attempts to fund a
range of cooperatives.
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
A Co-op Wave in Jackson Heights
72!lj 37. Ave. -a "red herring" has been served for conversion.
By MICHAEL HENRY POWELL
The view from the Flushing subray b"ne which rattles
along elevated tracks through the southern end of Jackson
Heights in Queens is of prosperous commercial strips.
Names, foods and products bespeak Latin America. Tw,o
and three-story houses stretch off the boulevard and, to the
west, large apartment buildings rise above the neighbor-
hood. Reflecting a mixture of Latin, Irish, Korean, Indian,
and Jewish influences, Jackson Heights nas undergone
many changes during the past ten years. However, despite
the voices of occasional doomsayers, Jackson Heights is
wearing its changes well. Most recent arrivals fit into the
Jackson Heights's traditional blue-collar and middle-class
make-up, the crime rate is dropping and the attractive ,
Junction Boulevard at 37th Avenue shopping strips cater to
a wide variety of tastes.
Recently, however, a new phenomeon, co-op conversions
has unsettled Jackson Heights, Over the last two years,
some 2,800 residents in 39 apartment buildings have
received red herrings, the name for the owner's initial co-op
bffering. Presently between 20-25 percent of Jackson
Heights'salready rental market face conversion. The phe-
nomenon already engulfing thousands of units in Manhat-
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982 22
tan and sections of Brooklyn and Queens, now confronts
many residents and tenants of Jackson Heights with uneasy
choices and questions raised by co-oping. Many tenants and
community leaders fear that these conversions
will result in an exodus of long-term residents from the
neighborhood while locking those remaining into unafford-
able mortgages and deteriorating buildings. They maintain
that conversion frequently merely offers landlords a chance
to tfnJoad aging buildings on tenants without adequate con-
tingency funds for rehabilitation.
But, other neighborhood residents, including some
tenants as well as landlords, foresee beneficial effects for the
neighborhood and insist that "going co-op" is the only
viable option in the face of rising building costs. Long-time
Jackson Heights owners such as Lester Rosenberg, eight of
whose buildings are being converted, claims that after nego-
tiations and "a serious consideration of the plans", many
tenants will opt to buy. Most troubling to many homeown-
ers, however, are not local owners such as Rosenberg, but a
wave of newly arrived "outside" developers. One major
outfit known as 63 Associates, a Manhattan-based develop-
ment firm owned by Aaron Zeigleman and William
I
Langfan, recently purchased 23 buildings, holding some
2,000 apartments, in Jackson Heights for the express pur-
pose of selling them as cooperatives. Ironically, both co-op
advocates and oppone nts view these purchases with alarm;
neighborhood sentiment was aptly capsulized by District
Manager Mary Sarro, who commented, "While I believe
there is some merit to co-oping, I do not think outsiders
should be allowed to destroy our neighborhood. Their
motive is to make a profit and leave."
Others, such as Democrat-Liberal Congressman Ben-
jamin Rosenthal and his community liaison, Orlando Artze,
agree with Sarro, but view the problem in a larger context.
As Artze said, "Clearly, outside developers are in a problem
class of their own. But, the general problem is similar when
dealing with local landlords. Co-oping is happening too
quickly, with too few safeguards and, in today's market,
with no assurance of financing for your average struggling
middle-class tenant."
With this in mind, Congressman Rosenthal's subcommit-
tee on commerce and consumer affairs is holding hearings
on conversions this month in Queens. In the meantime,
Artze, along with the North Queens office of the Neighbor-
hood Stabilization Program of the City Commission on
Human Rights, have sponsored a series of workshops on
co-ops and helped organize tenant associations and councils
to address the conversion issue. In Artze's view, the verdict
at these meetings was clear: "Most tenants are absolutely
opposed to co-oping. At best, five percent will go along."
J
ACKSON Heights's graceful, tree-lined streets are al-
ready home to several long-time successful co-Ops, a fact
mentioned by many current co-op advocates. However, as
Margaret Moffatt, a tenant at 8811 34th Avenue,
commented, "Several years ago, I considered buying into
one of those co-ops for about 15,000. Now my landlord is
planning to ask for about $35,000 for my two-room apart-
ment. I can't afford that." Indeed, Moffatt and other
tenants suspect that the current spate of red herrings are not
aimed at Jackson Heights residents, a view echoed by
Orlando Artze. "If there is co-oping pressure," he says, "it
is not coming from the neighborhood."
Only half-an-hour from Manhattan on either the subway
or the expressway, Jackson Heights is an attractive area for
either Manhattan or Long Island transplants. Co-op offer-
ing prices are not high by Manhattan's inflated standards.
And, some residents think that the conversions will have a
beneficial effect on the community. Robert Burns, a tenant
at 7215 37th Avenue, looks at his building's co-op plan with
guarded anticipation. "For many of us, going co-op will
present a chance to make a good investment," Burns com-
mented. "And a higher income tenancy will increase our tax
base. " However, while Burns insisted that "people need to
be able to come and go," he agreed with co-op opponents
that some landlords are "only trying to dump their prob-
lems on the tenants." Touching on the same issue, Mary
Sarro said, "I think tenants need to look at co-oping very
judiciously. No one should jump in unless the systems are in
A-I shape."
Michael Sturm, a tenant for four years at 3515 84th
Street, a building owned by Lester Rosenberg, explained
why his tenant association is "very strong against our red .
herring." Sturm pointed to "conditions within our building
requiring that dollars be sunk into systems." Like aging
beauty queens, many older buildings appear to be in better
shape than they are. Beneath the cosmetics, systems and
structures are often fading away.
WJ:lile all the red herrings provide for funds to be set aside
to meet such contingencies, the proposed amounts are often
deemed inadequate by the tenants. Artze said, "Landlords
are offering $25,000 in reserve for buildings requiring half a
million dollars in repairs over the next five years." Accord-
ing to Artze, "Every Jackson Heights offering plan thus far
h ~ been for an eviction plan."
As a landlord hoping to sell, Lester Rosenberg tends to
soft-pedal the objections of co-op opponents. He maintains
that "Everything's negotiable. We start off asking for an
eviction plan and settle for a non-eviction plan. We start off
with a small contingency fund and our engineer's report,
and later take a look at the tenant's report and negotiate."
However, Rosenberg readily acknowledges that the process
is not always so smooth. "I maintain my buildings in good
condition," he said. "My father built the buildings, I have
very few violations and the tenants generally trust me. Of
course, this is not always the case with other landlords."
Indeed, Rosenberg expects that most buildings will see
better maintenance if they go co-op. "My buildings? No.
You will probably see about the same conditions." With
some mild expectations, Rosenberg's assessment of his man-
agement is seconded by his tenants.
Though Rosenberg frankly admits that he decided to co-
op when "everybody else .started and we figured we better
get on the bandwagon," he too is skeptical about the inten-
tions of Zeigleman and Langfan. As he said, "On the face
of it, there is little difference between us. However, we know
how to manage a building even if the co-op plan fails. What
will happen to them if eight out of their sixteen plans fail?"
N article in the January 19,1981, issue oJ the Real
ftEstate Weekly described speculators in the co-op mar-
ket as "crap-shooters prepared to let a substantial
investment ride or fallon the roll of the dice. " After buying
their Jackson Heights properties at advantageous prices,
Zeigleman and Langfan are now rolling their dice; 20 out of
23 buildings have received red herrings. "Initial indica-
tions," said Orlando Artze, "are that their plans are in
rough shape. We are now concerned that defeat will not
simply spell deterioration for the buildings." The develop-
ers' apparent inaccessl bility has not helped calm community
fears. Community Board Number 3 has not been able to
contact them and no comment was forthcoming for this ar-
ticle. As Mary Sarro commented, "They are not exactly do-
ing much by way of public relations."
While Zeigleman and Lanfan loom as large targets,
problems inherent in the co-op process continue apace.
Marie Harrington, a tenant leader at 83-10 35th Avenue, de-
tailed the desultory results of her association's battle against
the co-op plan.
"Previous to the introduction of the red herring, our
23 CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
37th Avenue commercial strip .
building was fairly well maimained," she asserted.
"Afterwards, repairs slowed and the landlord refused to
touch the rent-controlled apartments." The I32-unit
building began a slow decline that is continuing today.
Harrington said the last code inspection turned up 558
violations, but the landlord recently changed the plan to a
non-eviction one. Now, if he wants to co-op, all he needs is
15 percent inside or outside. Harrington's association
hired an engineer to examine the building at the outset to
repair the plumbing problems. The 50-year-old building, he
found,is literally coming apart at the seams.
As summer approaches, the tree-lined avenues of Jackson
Heights provide a soft, cool cover for the area's large senior
population. Children play dodge-ball under the watchful
eyes of their parents and laundry bounces on backyard
lines. This attractive neighborhood is slowly gathering
strength. In response to co-oping pressures, 69 multi-ethnic
tenant associations recently formed the Jackson Heights
Tenant Council. Workshops and clinics are developing in-
creasing numbers of astute tenants, and Congressman
Rosenthal plans to renew his quixotic call for national freeze
on co-op conversions. However, the pressures of a tighten-
ing housing market are beginning to take their toll; spiral-
ing mortgage rates and over-priced dwellings are causing
some long-term residents to move. "Warehousing"-
holding apartments off the market in anticipation of co-op
sales has further reduced a tight rental market and made it
difficult for younger generation residents to stay in the com-
munity in which they were raised. As Judy Charrington of
the North Queens Neighborhood Stabilization office said,
"It's a damn shame. Co-ops are attractive to outsiders but
not to tenants. Local residents need rental units, not over-
priced time bombs."D
Discrimination Charged in Forest Hills
Four leading real estate brokers and
40 owners of apartment buildings in the
Forest Hills, Kew Rego Park
areas of Queens have been charged this
spring with a pattern of housing dis-
crimination under the federal Fair
Housing Act.
The class action suits were brought by
nine black plaintiffs who took part in a
three-month series of tests of the daily
practices of brokers in these areas, by
the Open Housing Center, a fair hous-
ing agency which conducted the tests,
and by a black resident of the area.
Kraham Leasing Corp., Keret Real
Estate, H. K. Benjamin Realty, Inc.,
brokers, are accused of discriminating
consistently against black customers.
The building owners charged Fred C.
Trump, Harold J. Kalikow and Sidney
Kalikow.
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982
Patrick St. Jour, an IBM customer
engineer who is genuinely seeking to
rent an apartment, claims damages
from Keret Real Estate and Glenjay
Realty. At both brokers he was shown
no apartments and told nothing was
available, while the white tester following
him within an hour was shown or told
of up to five available apartments.
Ingrid Howell, the area resident who
herself had to file suit to secure an
apartment, charges denial of the bene-
fits of living in an interracial communi-
ty because of the defendants' discrimi-
natory practices.
The study of brokers in this 95 per-
cent white section of Queens was fund-
ed by a grant to the Open Housing
Center from the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development. At
least six visits were made to each bro-
24
ker's office by teams of black and white
persons posing as apartment seekers,
who were trained and supervised by the
Open Housing Center. Continual dif-
ference in treatment was found, accord-
ing to Betty Hoeber, director of the
Center.
Andrew C. Jacobs, one of the law-
yers representing the plaintiffs pro bono
through the New York Lawyers for the
Public Interest, pointed out the signifi-
cance of the recent Supreme Court de-
cision on the Fair Housing Act, in rela-
tion to testing for incidence of dis-
crimination.
"The decision affirms the right of
black testers who have been given false
information in seeking apartments, to
bring he said, "making possible
the present broad legal action in
Queens." 0
The state's moderate income Mitchell-Lama developments have a host of chronic
problems, chief among them a lack of repair funds. Now, a bill aimed at solving many
of them is before the legislature. The bill has a price, however, and it's not just dollars.
G
OVERNOR CAREY'S PROPOS-
al to allo\\ the sale of moderate
income Mitchell-Lama co-op apart-
ments to rise to a limited market value,
first floated last year, has been exten-
sively reworked. In light of the response
so far, it faces an uncertain prospect as
intensive negotiations continue and
the state legislature goes into the final
weeks of its regular session.
The original motivation for the gov-
ernor's bill remains intact-to create a
revenue flow from the sales of state-
financed Mitchell-Lama co-op apart-
ments to be applied to loans for repair,
maintenance, or capital expenses of
ailing state-financed rental develop-
ments, especially those constructed by
the Urban Development Corporation
(UDC).
But beyond its own fate, the bill has
thrust to the fore a consideration of
some basic issues concerning public
policy on housing. Chief among these is
By JAMES D. GARST
whether or not the state should allow
the cost of Mitchell-Lama co-ops to rise
beyond the reach of the income groups
they were intended to serve.
What then results from the new
design of this bill?
1) Out of the newly-created flow of
money, many Mitchell-Lama coopera-
tors will realize considerably more from
the sale of their apartments than they
had counted on. Their co-ops will also
scoop up unanticipated money, the uses
of which will be rigidly restricted.
2) UDC-financed housing will get
needed maintenance and repairs and
better energy efficiency which will
otherwise have to be paid for out of the
state tax funds. Tenants who have long
complained about the condition of this
housing gain no say in how this money
will be used.
3) New York City is allowed to write
its own ticket on crucial parts of the
program as a device in balancing the
25
mUlicipal budget, rather than maintain-
ing and strengthening Mitchell-Lama as
a moderate income housing program.
4) A pattern is created to set up one
component of Mitchell-Lama housing
as a revenue source for another, without
addressing important financial needs
affecting the entire program.
5) A commitment to subsidize low
income residents on an outgoing basis,
at a 20 percent rent to income level, ;,s
replaced by a program confined 'w
present residents on a 35 percent rent to
income formula.
6) Co-ops will be priced out of the
reach of many households which CI;)utd
now expect to buy into them.
7) The day will be hastened when
those who control the choicest Mir.chell-
Lama developments will be able tlG buy
out of the program, and the housing
will pass over to the completely unre-
stricted sector generating large windfalls
in the process.
CITY L1MITS/JuneJuly 1982
Creating "Free Money"
The political engine of the bill is set in
motion by removing existing limits to
the resale value of Mitchell-Lama co-
ops, and sharing out the proceeds, thus
giving newly-created returns to selling
shareholders and to the housing co-ops
they are leaving. At present, resale of a
Mitchell-Lama co-op cannot exceed the
amount of the original payment for the
apartment plus mortgage payments
made by the outgoing shareholders.
The governor's bill sets a new, higher
cap-8 times the annual carrying
charge. New York City would be able to
set an even higher cap, perhaps 10 times
the annual carrying charge, for co-ops
under its supervision. Market forces in
any case might result in sales at prices
lower than any specified cap.
The bill's political attractiveness is
that it creates "free money," as a state
housing aide called it, and provides a
way of directing it to meet needs that
otherwise would have to come from tax
levies . And it leaves some funds left
over for the benefit of the co-op sellers
and their housing companies.
Its negative effect is on a constituency
that is amorphous-those who in years
to come wiH seek apartments in the
Mitchell-Lama co-ops. The average
income level of households will inexora-
bly be shifted upward as turnovers oc-
cur. The lower band of households in
the moderate income spectrum will be
outbid on the purchase price by those in
the higher band. And many households
meeting eligibility under existing
standards will be totally frozen out be-
cause they will not have sufficient in-
,:ome to qualify for bank loans.
"[HE BILL'S PROVISIONS AP-
j plying to resale of co-ops financed
by the City of New York enable the City
Co uncil to enact significant variations
from standards set for state-financed
The most significant
of th'ese allows revenues from co-op re-
sales to be used for "any lawful munici-
pal h\)using purpose" rather than being
plow back into the city's own trou-
bled Mitchell-Lamas. Furthermore, the
city would not be required to set up its
own wnant assistance fund, though if it
did, it would have to follow the pattern
of the .state's program.
Mayor Koch's financial plan for
CITY L\lMITS/June-July 1982
Bailing Out the UDC
The benefits of the tradeoff between more expensive Mitchell-Lama co-ops
and freeing up tax dollars for other purposes are supposed to accrue the owners
and tenants of distressed Urban Development Corperation housing.
The UDC initiated by Governor Rockefeller in 1968 following the assassina-
tion of Martin Luther King, Jr., was given broad powers to build low and
moderate income housing outside the constraints of local planning approval,
zoning, and building codes. More than 90 percent of its units are subsidized. The
113 UDC housing companies, including 31,841 uriits, are predominantly owned
by partnerships which hold them as tax shelters. Of the total, 35 developments
with 15,504 units are in New York City, with the rest scattered throughout the
state.
Figures provided by Joseph C. Bosch, chairman of the Governor's Council on
Housing and the main architect of the bill, indicate that about $8 million a year
would be made available from co-op resales for UDC bailout loans, based on a
four percent annual turnover in the 36,871 state-financed co-op units. An equal
amount would be provided annually to a tenant assistance fund available only to
very low income households now residing in state-financed Mitchell-Lama co-
ops and rentals whose shelter costs exceed 35 percent of income. This new
formula would replace an existing "capital grant" program, now nearly de-
pleted, which keeps shelter cost from exceeding 20 percent of income, and com-
pares with President Reagan's new federal subsidy standards of aid to the extent
of 30 percent of income.
A bailout of UDC's part with the Mitchell-Lama has been proceeding piece-
meal and unheralded since 1975. According to Bosch, $350 million of state
money has been spent from 1975 to date to cover shortfalls in debt service and
another $350 million is projected over the next five years.
This state assistance works out to an average of $152.67 per 'month for the
31,841 UDC apartment units over the 12 year period. It reduces the pressures of
rent increases on tehants, and to the extent that avoiding unacceptably high va-
cancy rates acts as a check on rent levels, it maintains the housing stock for
people who otherwise could not afford it. It is a cash commitment of a kind not
made to residents in the other 135,051 units of Mitchell-Lama who are being
highly squeezed. Yet, year after year, the substantial UDC bailout silently clears
all the budget hurdles while bills which would relieve pressures on residents in
the rest of Mitchell-Lama languish in 0
1982-86 projects $15 million in revenues
from the city's share of co-op resales for '
fiscal 1982-83. There are 68 city-fi-
nanced co-op housing companies with
31,390 units, and 88 rental housing
companies with 31,780 units:
The division of the proceeds from the
sales have been carefully out.
After the original payment and
amortization have been returned to the
seller, and after claimants to mortgage'
and tax arrearages are satisfied, remain-
ing proceeds are shared out 30 percent
to the departing shareholder, 20 percent
to the co-op housing company, and 50
percent to project loan and tenant assis-
tance funds administered by state and
city. Use of the co-op's 20 percent
share ,is rigorously limited and can be
spent only on state-ordered improve-
26
ments or mortgage and tax payments.
The specific formula for capping re-
sale prices in this year's bill was a re-
sponse to widespread pressures from the
Mitchell-Lama community, as was the
increase in the income eligibilty and sur-
charge standard, to 7 times tbe rent or
carrying charges for households of three
or less and 8 times for households of
four or more. The present ratio is 6 and
7 times.
Mitchell-Lama residents also suc-
ceeded in eliminating eviction provi-
sions for households whose incomes ex-
ceed eligibility standards by 50 percent
for a period of three years. State Hous-
ing Commissioner Richard A. Berman
has threatened to invoke this previously
dormant part of the law in housing
under his jurisdiction.
Some Could Leave Program
Finally, one feature of the bill calls
attention to the prospect that large
chunks of the Mitchell-Lama housing
stock may be "bought out" of the pro-
gram and pUtced on the open housing
market. At present, a Mitchell-Lama
housing company may dissolve after 20
years of first being occupied by paying
off all mortgage indebtedness. No per-
mission is required. The bill would ac-
celerate the trigger date to 15 years from
occupancy date but require approval of
~ i t h e r the state or city commisioner of
housing. The properties would lose exis-
ting tax abatements but would be abso-
lutely free of any rent restrictions. Co-
op apartments would be traded in an
absolutely unrestricted market, and car-
rying charges would rise proportion-
ately. Unless changes are made, the city
could lose a substantial part of its mod-
erate income housing in its most mar-
ketable areas. 0
James D. Garst is a member of the
Board of Directors of the Mitchel/-
Lama Council and a resident of Colum-
bus Park.
CHANGES
PROPOSED
FOR NPC GRANTS
A
s THE STATE LEGISLATURE
. lumbers to a close tentatively pre-
dicted for early July, nonprofit
community groups and organizations
throughout New York State receiving
state funds for housing rehabilitation
and tenant organizing are in jeopardy of
losing some $3.5 million from their
]982-83 budget.
In addition, established community
groups that have been funded under the
state's Neighborhood Preservation
Program since its inception in 1978 are
approaching the program's cut-off
point at the mandated aggregate cap of
$300,000 and, thus, if new legislation to
lift this proviso and raise the cap to
$500,000 is not passed during this
session, they will find themselves going
into the current fiscal year with terminal
grants.
Who Can Buy?
How would the co-op apartment
resale provisions affect the afforda-
bility of housing aimed at moderate
According to Michael McKee, lobby-
ist for the New York State Tenant and
Neighborhood Coalition (NYSTNC),
this year's budget for funding the state's
200 existing NPP nonprofit housfng
companies was reduced to $7.5 million
in the figures reported out of the legis-
lation March 31, which means that no
new organizations will be able to receive
state monies under the program if this
bare-bones $7.5 million figure is passed
by both houses without additional fund-
ing.
Also, McKee explained, some of the
groups already in the program could be
terminated or all of those currently re-
ceiving funds could receive substantial
across- the- board cuts as the proposed
1982-83 figure of $7.5 million is $1
million less than the 1981-82 budget of
$8.5 million.
"Efforts are being. made to restore
money to the budget, but if it's not, I
see a dangerous situation, one that
would result in picking and choosing
(among groups)," said McKee.
27
income people?
Consider the arithmetic for a typi-
cal two-bedroom apartment at Co-
lumbus Park on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan, with a monthly carry-
ing charge of $325. In this highly
marketable area, the resale at the 8
times cap would be $31,200. A buyer
assuming a 75 percent loan of that
amount at 17 percent annual interest
would be obligated for $3,978 annual
interest charges on the loan (before
an amortization factor to pay it off)
plus $3,900 annual carrying charges.
If the bank requires that annual in-
come cover 30 percent of total shelter
cost, the household must have at
least $26,260 annual income. At
lO-times cap, the minimum annual
income requirement would be
$29,575. The magnitude of these
upward shifts of minimum eligibility
becomes apparent when a compari-
son is made with tbe median house-
hold income of $18,190 (for 1979) re-
ported for Columbus Park in the
1980-81 Annual Report to the Legis-
lature prepared by the State Division
of Housing and Community Renew-
al. 0 J.n.G.
The $3.5 million needed to hold the
line with this state program which is
administered by the Division of
Housing and Community Renewal
involves $2.5 million in reappropria-
tions from previous years-$1.5 million
from NPP and $1 million from the
Rural Preservation Companies program
-in addition to the $1 million in new
funding.
The average annual grant to each
group is between $45,000 and $50,000.
By law, no group may receive more
than $100,000 in a given year.
According to McKee, Sunset Park
was helpftil in recruiting State' Senator
Christopher J. Mega, Republican of
Brooklyn's Bay Ridge section, to be the
Senate sponsor of the new legislation
supporting the $500,000 cap and the
restoration of the $3.5 million to the
budget, which was drafted by Assem-
blyman Alexander B. ("Pete")
Grannis, Democrat-Liberal of Manhat-
tan. Grannis chairs the Assembly's
Housing Committee. OS.R.
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
Loft
Tenants
Get A Bill
In early June, New York State
legislators passed into law a bill
designed to regulate a large chunk of
New York City's rental housing stock, a
portion thus far untouched by any such
legislation-namely, residential lofts.
The article that follows traces the tor-
turous path that led to the loft bill's
passage in Albany. It also describes the
ft;lctors which make the legislation,
though far from perfect from their
perspective, the object of many loft
tenants' support. And if sheds light on
the legislative process that seems to
grind most slowly when tenant protec-
tions are on the agenda.
The author is a member of the Steer-
ing Committee of the Lower Manhattan
Loft Tenants, a group which lobbiedfor
the new loft bill. He admits to a pro-
tenant bias and insisted that readers be
warned of this.
By CHUCK DeLANEY
A
T THE BEGINNING OF JUNE,
almost everyone in government
was predicting that Mayor Ed Koch's
proposed Loft Bill would pass both
houses of the state legislature and
become law. The bill, to use the Albany
legislative parlance, was "greased." On
June 7, it passed the Assembly; two
days later,it cleared the Senate.
This now-passed legislation, as
described in the February issue of City
Limits (see box summary) will provide
for the first time, a framework for
legalization of most of the city's resi-
dential loft units: perhaps 20,000 to
40,000 households. It will also provide a
form of rent stabilization for them.
CITY LIMITS/JuneJuly 1982
A year ago, loft tenants suffered a
major defeat when New York City's
Department of Housing Preservation
and Development came out with a bad
loft bill and compounded the problem
by bringing it to Albany late in the
se:;sion. Consequently, no residential
loft legislation passed, and a stop-gap
moratorium on evictions-enacted by
state legislators in 1980-was allowed to
lapse. That cost hundreds of loft
tenants their homes. Tenants in
marginal situations decided that the
only route to keeping their bomes-pro-
tracted legal "holding actions" in Civil
or Supreme Court -simply weren't
worth it.
After the June, 1981, debacle, the city
did start work on a new proposal rather
quickly. They managed to have a draft
version "almost" ready for the Novem-
ber special legislative session. At that
time, tenant leaders urged city to
hurry, maintaining that a "miss is as
good as a mile" and that if the bill
weren't adopted in the 1981 special
session it would likely be June, 1982,
before the legislature would pass such a
bill.
Well, June, 1982, is here, and it has
taken a full six months since the
Mayor's Loft Bill was unveiled for the
bill to work its way through the snarled '
path in Albany. It now appears that all
the major players in the game can "live
with the Mayor's loft bill," so it has
passed.
And it is instructive to see why the
major Albany players can "live with the
bill. "
The New State Senate: The
Senate Rules Committee, controlled by
Majority Leader Warren Anderson,
began to move the Loft Bill in April.
The Republican Senate majority does
28
. I
not usually look kindly on bills that
extend any form of regulation to rental
housing. However, the loft bill will
guarantee that tenants pay for the cost
of all necessary improvements required '
to legalize the buildings, and that
tenants pay the interest charges as well.
The pass-through of interest charges is
something that pro-real estate forces
would like to see added to other forms
of tenant rent regulation, so inclusion
of the interest pass-along is a plus.
Repayment will come through "rent
restructuring," so in a sense this law gives
landlords free building improvements as
long as they are willing to obey the basic
laws regulating residential housing.
Bear in mind that loftlords now have
few laws to obey. Some of the more
responsible real estate types actually
think that muzzling the unruly loftlords
may be a good thing, since they have
generated substantial bad press. This
me:;sage has been relayed to the Senate
by the regular real estate lobbyists.
It should be noted that the Senate did
accept the bill's provision that offers
protection to loft buildings with
between three to five units, a first for
New York City rent stabilization. This is
very important to loft tenants since
about 50 percent of the population lives
in buildings that fall into that category.
A small 5-stoty loft building, a
dominant type in some neighborhoods,
generally has one or two commercial
floors, and three or four residential
lofts above.
The New York State Assembly: This
house behaved reasonably well through-
out this year's campaign. Speaker
Stanley Fink assured tenant leaders
early on that he was willing to pass on
any loft bill that could pass both
houses, a' reference to the generally anti-
tenant stance of the Senate. The New
York City Asseroblymembers most af-
flicted with lofr tenants- Paul Viggiano,
Richard Gottfried, William F.
Passannte, Steven Sanders of Manhat-
Eileen Dugan, Joseph Lentol,
Roger Green and Jpseph Ferris of
Brooklyn-worked with Assembly Hous-
ing Committee Chairman Alexander
"Pete" Grannis, and had there been
any possibility of securing a better loft
bill, there would have been help from
this quarter.
New York City's lobbyists worked
hard on the bill, and while they were un-
receptive to any proposed amendments
that would have made the bill less costly
to tenants, they have also apparently re-
sisted extremely strong pressure to make
any number of changes that would be
pleasing to the other parties in this dis-
pute: loft lords, real estate machers, and
other pro-business interests.
Big Real Estate interests as person-
ified by the Real Estate Board of New
York' can live with the bill because it
provides law-abiding owners of residen-
tial rental loft buildings with a great
deal: put in a little money up front, or
swing a loan (regardless of interest
rates) and the friendly tenants will put it
all back in your pocket over time. If
they can't afford the payback, they can
sell their improvements (the kitchen, or
bath for instance,which were probably
installed by tenants in a raw
loft in most cases) and leave. If they sell
the fixtures to you, under the hew 10ft
bill you can decontrol the unit and rent
it at market level, or if they sell it to
someone else, that new tenant will con- .
tinue tne job of paying you back. Mean-
while, you can anticipate tax deductions
and perhaps depreciation and invest-
ment credits.
Once the building is legal, and you've
offered the tenants their first rent-
stabilized lease at the new restructured
rent, you can start a co-op proceeding.
Now if only the tax leaves you
alone for a few years, you could do
quite nicely.
Lawyers for both sides can live with
the bill. There will be plenty of work for
them. There will be fights about every
aspect of the complex new law: fights
about every voint that either tenants or
landlords have identified as trouble-
some, as well as fights about things no
one has noticed yet. There will be
Article 78 proceedings, constitutional
questions, and appeals galore. Plenty of
work for lawyers.
The Tenants: Yes, the low income
artist pioneer tenants can live with the
bill. Make no mistake, they won't flour-
ish, but it's a little like. having someone
constantly hitting you over the head:
W ouldn 't you promise to pay them any-
thing to make it stop? The last months
have been exceedingly difficult for these
tenants. In the trenches, the number of
court cases continue to mount. At the
extreme front of the legal battle, the
lead case of five Walker Street tenants
of loftlord Eli Lipkis has now been
denied every appeal in all state courts to
prevent eviction. The tenants remain in
their lofts only because Southern Dis-
trict Federal Ju'dge Vincent L.
Broderick agreed to hear arguments
from the tenan'ts 'attorneys who main-
tained tqat eviction would violate the
constitutional rights of the tenants by
depriving them of property (their
cy). The marshals were only hours away
from evicting the tenants when Broderick
agreed to hear the attorney's arguments.
As of early June, there has been no
decision forthcoming from Judge
Broderick. The. tenants, who had
moved out some of their most valued
possessions fearing rough treatment
from the marshals, remain exhausted, a
bit numb, and wondering how they will
meet the extraordinary legals costs of
Lower East Side Art Colonies
the appeal process.
The tenants, battered and wiser than
last year, will take this bill. It's far from
perfect, but it represents a compromise
that could start the process of making
the loft buildings safe and legal rental
housing. With or without a law, tenant
leaders predict that a significant per-
centage of the current generation of loft
tenants will be displaced. It is felt that
displacement under' the law will give
tenants a chance to anticipate their fu-
ture rather than await the eviction
tice. Currently, the tenants who get
bounced are the ones who happen to
have the most brazen landlords. The
new eviction criteria will involve build-
ing costs, financing costs, and hardship
As is usually the case, money will
be the bottom line.
Only the loftlords remain unalterably
opposed to the legislation. Co-op loft
sales are off, and the "temporary" rent-
ers in an illegal building keep the cash
flow positive. In a last desperate move,
the loftlord organization offered up a
"telephone" book of proposed amend-
ments that would have gutted the
legislation. But no one in Albany was
taking those proposed amendments
seriously. 0
This Year's Loft Bill
The 1982 loft law:
Sets forth a new article 7-C of the
state Multiple Dwelling Law, creating
a class of buildings in New York City
called "interim multiple dwellings."
Compels legalization and rent reg-
ulation of the new "IMD class"
buildings with three or more residen-
tial lofts in non-manufacturing
zones, if three units existed in the
building between April, 1980, and
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
December, 1981.
Legalization will be performed
over a timetable governed by the
Loft Board, a new quasi-official
body akin to the Counciliation and
Appeals Board. The Loft Board will
also monitor costs of legalization
work and financing, hear hardship
appeals, and can decree interim cost
increases.
Upon legalization, tenants' rents
will increase to pay back Loft Board-
sanctioned legalization costs over ten
30
years, or "if landlord used financing,
over 15 years. Separate guideline per-
centages will be set for loft housing's
permissible increases stabiliza-
tion by the Rent Guidelines Board.
Mandates conditions for hardship
exemptions for certain types of
buildings, provides waiver of
tenants' right to withhold rent under
Section 302 of the Multiple Dwellings
Law, affirms most basic existing
tenants' rights as applicable and sets
out guidelines for co-oping loft
buildings,O
The Other Side
of the
Penn Yard Tracks
To the Editor:
In the past 19 years, 10 studies have
been made of the feasibility of situating
trailer-on-flat car (TOFC) terminal en
the old Penn Yards site on Manhattan's
West Side. Controversy still abounds,
however, because the building of a
TOFC terminal on this site has become
the last hope to those who wish to re-
build the garment center in Manhattan.
The facts, however, clearly reveal
TOFC's weaknessess.
The question that must be asked is,
"Is a TOFC terminal at the Penn Yards
site feasible, economical and compati-
ble with the surroundings?" Unfortu-
nately, this query, and consequently the
response, has not been asked. William
A. Price's article, "The 62-Acre Ques-
tion" [May, City Limits], raises a
different question: "How can the indus-
try be saved at any cost?" The answer
to the first question would have led to
an entirely different conclusion: A
TOFC terminal at 60th St. would never
be economical, would most certainly
contlict with its residential surround-
ings, and is not feasible.
One recl!nt study reveals that there is
indeed a market for TOFC. At its maxi-
mum some 84,000 trailers per year
could be expected to use the terminal
saving almost $8 million in hauling costs
per year. Unfortunately, an engineering
study reveals that this figure can never
be attained given the size of the site.
Realistically,on the present site only
30,000 trailers per year could ever use
the terminal, and this can only be ac-
complished by acquiring an adjacent
site owned by Hemsley-Spear. Mr.
Hemsley has thus far chosen to remain
silent on his plans for the site. It is evi-
dent then, that the savings calcu1ated in
the market study are unattainable.
Two tangential arguments for TOFC
can be made. One is freight at any
cost," and the other is "trains plus
housing." Both views are appealing but
neither is practical. Building a terminal
underneath the proposed Lincoln-West
development seems to garner the most
support: It would permit a dual use of
the land; the terminal itself would be
out of sight, and housing would also be
built. As an engineer's study states,
and as TOFC plus housing proponents
are quick to point out, it is structurally
possible to build TOFC underneath
Lincoln-West if a few structural chan-
ges are made. To build such a terminal
for 30,000 trailers per year would cost a
minimum of $43 million.
Aside from the site's lack of space,
this propsal would create other
problems. Security, ventilation to re-
move the trucks' diesel fumes and new
traffic solutions would all be needed.
Perhaps most important are the many
problems that cannot be forseen by
building the country's first covered in-
termodal terminal.
To those advocates for building a
TOFC facility alone on this site, only
one question need be asked: Who will
pay for the land and develop the termin-
al? If there is such an individual (as
31
some proponents of the TOFC plan
have alluded), then he/she should step
foward and present the plans; otherwise
any discussion about building TOFC
alone is only so much talk.
The facts then, do not bode well for
TOFC. Why then has the city been
unable to decide against it, or for that
matter reach any conclusion at all? How
long will the city continue to straddle
the fence and avoid itself to
a real planning decision? In the end,
the most important questions behind
TOFC and Lincoln-West are: Is the
City Planning Commis<;ion capable of
planning? 1nd does the city want to try
to preserve New York's diversity and
mixed uses by a no-holds barred at-
tempt to save the garment center by
building the terminal? If so, is it willing
to forgo the needed housing offered by
the Lincoln-West development in order
to build TOFC alone?
Or, does the city want to let econo-
mics continue to shape the future of
New York? Left alone, most light man-
ufacturing will probably continue to
leave Manhattan for New Jersey and
the outer boroughs, leaving Manhattan
as a service and financial center. Does
the city advocate this vision of New
York? Activities of the city's Public
Development Corporation and the tax
abatements granted by the Industrial
and Commercial Incentive Board reveal
CITY LIMITS/June-July 1982
this to be the Administration's policy,
though it is unwritten and unacknow-
ledged. If that is the city's view, then the
City Planning Commission should re-
flect it and finally earn its keep by
creating and carrying out a long-range
plan for New York.
Under such a plan a TOFC terminal
at 60th St. would not be built. Instead,
the City would endorse the intermodal
terminal planned by Conrail for the
Harlem River Yards in the South
Bronx. Not only are there the requisite
road connections at this site, but there is
ample land and a ready labor force. The
savings incurred by not subsidizing a
terminal at the Penn Yards site could be
utilized to relocate the manufacturers
remaining in the garment center to areas
near the Harlem River Yards or to sites
with roads that make it easily accessible.
Economic forces would often then take
their natural course: Unused manufac-
turing space in Manhattan would be-
come vital housing, needed jobs would
be created in the South Bronx, and the
garment center would have a new home
while still remaining in New York City.
Unfortunately, like the TOFC-or-
death argument, this too is only so
many dreams. The reality is that the
City Planning Commission is little more
than an enforcer of zoning regulations
and a processor of ULURP applica-
tions. Planning of the sort discussed
here only occurs in 10 and 20 year plans
that collect dust on shelves. The TOFC
question will eventually be resolved and
the controversy will be dispelled. How-
ever, planning issues will continue to
arise, and the City will continue to
render non-decisions at the 11 th hour.
The role of the City Planning
Commision must now take center stage.
Politicians should question the
waste, New Yorkers should demand to
know their future ano academicians
should give their best advice. The City
Planning Commission should be orche-
strating these dynamic forces and
leading the band, not sitting on the
sidelines. Why hold on to a dream that
is dying when you can creatively plan
for a city that will continue to evolve,
grow and pave the path for other cities?
Diane P. Adler
Bronx, N.Y.
CITY LlMITS/JuneJuly 1982
City Aid for SRO's
To the Editor:
Your recent article on potential state
funding for SRO housing [April, 1982]
describes many of the positive efforts
being taken to preserve this needed
housing resource. However, it fails to
mention two new City programs which
are now available to assist not-for-
profit groups and/or private owners
who wish to upgrade SRO properties.
The SRO Loan and Tax Benefit Pro-
grams were established this year by the
Mayor's Office of SRO Housing and
the Department of Housing Preserva-
tion and Development to provide mean-
ingful incentives for the maintenance
and improvement of single room
housing.
More than $1 million in Community
Development Block Grant funds has
been allocated to the SRO Loan Pro-
gram. Funds will be loaned at a one per-
cent interest rate for up to 20 years to
make improvements such as the installa-
tion or renovation of building-wide sys-
tems, as well as certain energy conserva-
tion equipment. Improvements to com-
munal living facilities are also eligible.
As part of ~ h e loan agreements, social
service workers must be allowed access
to the buildings and, where feasible,
space must be set aside in the buildings
for use by the social service personnel.
Improvements to buildings normally
result in increased assessments and in-
creased taxes. Under the SRO Program,
owners are exempted from paying in-
creases based on the improvements for
ten years. The Tax Program also allows
the abatement of existing property taxes
for up to 15 years, based on the costs of
the improvements.
These programs reflect the city's re-
cognition of the economic viability and
social desirability of SRO housing as an
independent living alternative.
For more information on the SRO
incentive package, contact the Mayor's
Office of SRO Housing, 51 Chambers
Street, New York, New York 10007,
566-1880.
Judith Spektor
Director
Mayor's Office of SRO Housing
Fuel Decrease Isn't Passed Along
When the Koch administration in
1980 pushed a measure through the City
Council to allow landlords to pass on
fuel price increases to their rent con-
trolled tenants, most opposition cen-
tered on the ' size of the virtually auto-
matic increase and its weak energy con-
servation measures. For the sake of bal-
ance, the city tacked on a clause assur-
ing that any drop in fuel prices would be
reflected in rents as well. Few imagined
such an event.
Now, just two years later, the city
councilman who led the opposition to
the fuel pass along bill in 1980 is em-
broiled in a dispute with the city hous-
ing official charged with monitoring
and approving fuel passalong hikes over
his failure to alert tenants to a decrease
in the price. Both Rent Control Commi-
sioner Daniel Joy and Manhattan
Councilman Stanley Michels agree ten-
ants living in buildings where Number 4
fuel oil is burned are entitled to a slight
32
reduction. And under the law, landlords
who do not notify their tenants of the
drop in price lose their right to collect
all the previous pass along increases for
one year. Michels charged Joy with
"gross neglect and a shocking disregard
. for the rights of the tenants."
Michels said Joy failed to correct the
confusion caused by a misprint on the
official form used by landlords to notify
tenants of price rises which give the im-
pression that the price of Number 4 oil
had risen, not fallen.
There are 286,000 rent controlled
apartments in New York City and it is
not known how many of these are in
buildings using Number 4 fuel. While
the city is now reexamining the passa-
long notices filed by landlords, tenants
may ultimately have to go to court to
defend their refusal to pay an increase
pending notification by the city of a
reduction. 0 T.R.
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CITY LlMITS/JuneJuly 1982
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/
. TOKEE' !
1\111 HOMES f
~ !
Marching to Save the Other Plymouth Rock
S
NAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH
the streets and avenues of Manhat-
tan's Lower East Side, some 2,000 resi-
dents and supporters marched on May
22 to demonstrate against mounting real
estate pressures and speculation,
spurred on by city policies that threaten
that long-time polyglot low income
community.
The march was an occasion for
displaying all the colors, sounds and
costumes that have long characterized
the neighborhoods . Featuring Chinese
dragon dancers, grade school cheer-
leaders sporting "Save the Lower East
Side" T-shirts, a New Orleans-style jazz
band, mammoth papier-mache puppets
of landlords and Mayor Ed Koch and
be-ribboned local officials, accom-
panied with hundreds of multi-colored
posters, banners and balloons, the
march was a neighborhood festival with
a political point. "This Land Is Ours-
Speculators Keep Out" was the unifying
slogan adorning floats and buttons.
"We want to grow up on the Lower
East Side," declared a sign on a flat-
bottom truck filled with porn-porn
waving Puerto Rican children.
Starting out at Cooper Union, where
Abraham Lincoln gave his famous
"one nation divided" speech, through
Tompkins Square park, past abandoned
buildings along A venue C, through
Chinatown and ending at City Hall,
marchers chanted and sung their
opposition to current city plans.
At the rally, local representatives,
among them City Council member
Miriam Friedlander, Congressman
William Green and state Senator
Manfred Ohrenstein, expressed their
support for the anti-displacement
effort. The march and rally was
organized by the Lower East Side Joint
Planning Council, a coalition of local
housing groups that has sponsored a
series of discussions and meetings in the
past six months throughout the neigh-
borhood focusing on the mUltiple pres-
sures facing the area.
Out of the mobilization, residents
expect that a National Committee to
-.
Save the Lower East Side will be
formed. As Margarita Lopez, a
community leader, stated: "They
always talk about Plymouth Rock in the
history books; but how many people
actually came to America by way of
Plymouth Rock ... how many Latinos,
Jews, or Chinese? The Lower East Side
is truly a second Plymouth Rock, and in
reality, the true gateway to America for
millions of immigrants who made it
their home. The Lower East Side has
traditionally been the home for low and
moderate income families; that's how it
should remain. " OT.R.
CITTL ITS
SUBSCRIBERS
K
HY.
City Limits is the magazine that for six years
has provided news and analysis of what is hap-
pening to our communities and why_
City Limits readers know why owner abandon-
ment has ravaged some neighborhoods while
long-time residents in others face displacement.
Why fair housing is still an issue in New York City_
Why city residents are battling for open space_
These are just a few of the stories City Limits
covered in the past year. In the coming months we
will continue to look at these and many other
issues. We hope you'll join us.