And that - whatever your political sympathies - is a human spectacle on the grand scale.” In a rare moment of agreement, the Village Voice and the Wall Street Journal shared the sense that Co-op City’s rent strike victory and the achievement of tenant control was the first step in a new political order in New York.Īs Co-op City’s cooperators would soon find, the achievement of cooperator control was a pyrrhic victory. Vivian Gornick introduced the drama of the rent strike to readers of the Village Voice by writing “What is happening in Co-op City is what happens when the resigned become resistant, the scattered become organized, the meek become militant. 98 percent of the complex’s annual budget of around $200 million is covered by residents’ maintenance fees.This vision of a state devoid of power and a citizenry run amok that struck terror in the heart of landlords and the Wall Street Journal was celebrated by others. “The management company must be able to provide a plethora of services way beyond the traditional management needs of a residential co-operative.”Īs well as 15,372 residential units and 275,610 s/f of commercial space, Co-op City has its own 40-MW power plant, jail, and eight parking garages. When the request for proposals was first issued for a new manager in October, 2014, Paul Gottsegen, then president of the Greater New York Chapter of the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) said, “Assuming the management of Co-op City is a true property management challenge. The state’s Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) agency has oversight responsibilities in conjunction with Co-op City and other Mitchell-Lama developments that are under the state’s aegis. Co-op City has its own jail, security force and power stationĬo-op City’s managers, who are responsible for the community’s operations, take direction from the members of the community’s board of directors. Those Co-op City employees include a security force of 100 men and women with a command structure, a hierarchy of managers and supervisors, hundreds of maintenance and restorations workers, and groundskeepers.Ī 15-member board of directors, made up of Co-op City shareholders, sets policies for the Riverbay Corporation, the Bronx community’s housing company. O’Connor has previously said he would welcome the challenge of making Co-op City, an entity that employs 1,075 people, work as an affordable community for persons of limited means. When asked for comment yesterday (Tuesday) James O’Connor, president of Douglas Elliman Property Management, said, “We remain very interested and hopeful of working with the Board at Coop City but we do not have an agreement with them at this time.ˮįor one of the largest real estate firms in New York, the challenge facing Elliman is a new one. With Co-op City seemingly forced to accept outside management after the community’s board of directors dumped Marion Scott Real Estate, Inc., as its managers in November, 2014, the board resisted hiring another outside firm until HUD clamped down with escalating threats, which included massive fines for individual board members and the potential removal of them from their positions of leadership. HUD, the major insurer of Co-op City’s $621.5 mortgage since 2004, had contended that Riverbay’s loan agreement with Wells Fargo Bank required that an outside firm be at the helm of the housing company. The decision to hire the Elliman firm, which has 350 real estate management clients, came following a year and a half of delays in retaining an outside company to manage Co-op City.Ĭo-op City’s board of directors took action last week after receiving a “notice of violation” from HUD for failing to hire an outside firm to run the Riverbay Corporation, the housing company for the co-operative with 15,372 units that is constrained by Mitchell-Lama Housing Laws. Co-op City’s board of directors has approved the hiring of Douglas Elliman Property Management to manage the day-to-day operations of the nation’s largest housing complex.
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