City Limits Magazine, February 1983 Issue

From
Apartments
in
Glen Oales, Queens. .
Page II
From
Tenements
in
Clinton.
Page 13
From
. Borough Park
in
Brooklyn.
Page 6
Contents
Editorial ....................................... 3
Opinion
Sydenham: Politics versus Health Care ... . ... ... . 4
Short Term Notes
The Sacking of Midwood Gardens ........ ....... 6
Harassment Fines for 42nd St. Owners ........... 7
NYC's Rent Laws are Due for an Overhaul ........ 8
Racial Suit Against Brooklyn Co-op Settled ....... 9
Mobilize to Save Greenpoint Clinics ............. 10
The Story Behind the Glen Oaks Sales Pitch ........... 11
Co-op conversions take a new twist in these Queens gardens apart-
ments as an owner backs away from an ongoing rent strike.
Rent Strike at the Ninth Avenue 'L' ................. 13
The hospital that owned these buildings is bankrupt, and tenants
are having a hard time rmding just who is responsible for their
upkeep.
A People's Housing Tool? ......... . ............. . 15
"Inclusionary zoning" techniques have been used to some effec-
tiveness in.the suburbs: Could they work here?
New York's 'Partnership' Prepares to Build .... . ..... 18
New York's ultimate public-private alliance is out to build owner-
occupied single family housing.
Organize!
Tenants Picket Landlord's Home ............... 20
Welfare Organizing Shakes up the Comfortable ... 21
People
Survivor, Hero and Patriot. ................... 22
Energy
Getting Utility Loans for Weatherization ...... . .. 24
Follow-up .................... ..... ........... . 25
Tenants'Tactics ................................ 26
Resources/Events ....... . ...... . ................ 27
Review
How to Hold on to the Land ................... 28
Workshop ... '" ............................... 30
CITY LIMITS/February 1983
2
'WE WON'T MOVE!'
Dear Readers,
Tenants fighting for their rights in New York City's
housing market all have their unique tales to tell. A
number of them are included in this issue.
One is about Glen Oaks, a huge Queens apartment
complex with primarily middle class tenants who are
caught in the wake of a cooperative conversion plan as
their single landlord who has been slow to make repairs
breaks into dozens of little landlords. Another story
details the struggle of mainly low income residents of the
"Ninth Avenue L," a set of adjacent tenement buildings
in Manhattan's Clinton neighborhood. There, the
bankruptcy of their hospital-owner has made vacancies
more attractive than rent-paying tenants. The remaining
tenants at Tenth Avenue and 42nd Street know only too
well they are wanted out - someone even sent a
bulldozer to accomplish the task a couple of months ago.
And in Midwood Gardens in Brooklyn's Borough Park,
fires and threats have emptied six of ten buildings, but
some unwanted residents are still insisting on their right
to remain in their homes. The bottom line in each case is
the same. It is more profitable and convenient for owners
to neglect their rental properties and push their tenants
towards the door.
In each case, the organizing campaigns of the tenants
have been alike. They've built their organizations, con-
fronted their landlords, initiated rent strikes, and gone to
court. And while some of these courts have ordered
repairs, the orders have had few teeth. Somehow, the
political will to force an end to campaigns of harassment
is lacking in this city, whether it's the garden apartments
of Queens or the tenements of "Hell's Kitchen."
. There are ways to provide for New Yorkers of all in-
come levels. The Metropolitan Action Institute details
some of these in this issue's article on sharing the real
estate boom's profits with low income housing.
Meanwhile, those residents on the tip of the
displacement knife need sup port as well.
The City Limits Staff
(CITYUMIlS
Volume VIII Number 2
City Limits is published ten times per year,
monthly except double issues in June/ July and
August/ September, by the City Limits Com-
munity Information Service, Inc., a nonprofit
organization devoted to disseminating infor-
mation concerning neighborhood revitaliza-
tion. The publication is sponsored by three
organizations. The sponsors are:
Association oj Neighborhood Housing
Developers, Inc., an association of over two
dozen community-based, nonprofit housing
development groups, developing and ad-
vocating programs for low and moderate in-
come housing and neighborhood stabilization.
Prato Institute Center Jor Community and En-
vironmental Development, a technical
assistance and advocacy office offering profes-
sional planning and architectural services to
low and moderate income community groups.
The Center also analyzes and monitors govern-
ment policy and performance.
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a
technical assistance organization providing
assistance to low income tenant cooperatives in
management and sweat equity rehabilitation.
City Limits welcomes comments and article
contributions. Please include a stamped, self-
addressed envelope for return of manuscripts.
Material in City Limits does not necessarily
reflect the opinion of the sponsoring organiza-
tions. Send correspondence to: CITY LIMITS,
424 West 33rd Street. New York, N.Y. lOool
Postmaster send change of address to: City
Limits, 424 W. 33rd St., New York. NY 10001 .
Second-class postage paid
New York. N.Y. 10001
City Limits (ISSN 0199-0330)
Editor ....... .. . ...... .. . . . . Tom Robbins
Assistant Editor .... .. . . . . . . .. Tim Ledwith
Assistant Editor ..... . . . . . . .. Susan Baldwin
Marketing Director . . ..... . . ... Jim Mendell
Design and Layout . . ...... ... Louis Fulgoni
Copyright 1983. All Right s Reserved.
No portion or portions of this journal may
be reprinted without the express permission
of the publishers.
Cover illustration
by John Lake.
Neighborhood Generosity Rejected
Mayor Koch, in a recent and well-publicized address to the City Club
of New York, managed to incorporate an extraordinary amount of flag
waving into an otherwise serious public question:- How can the
legitimate selfinterests of neighborhood be balanced against the
needs of the City as a whole? Despite the Mayor's invitation to frivolity
(he not only managed to compare community boards to sovereign
states, but also invoked the nation's motto, "E Pluribus Unum," [One
from Many] during his speech), his attack on neighborhood advocates
deserves a serious response.
First of all, the Mayor's presentation suggested that City Hall ' s solu-
tion to every problem (or at least those few examples he could cite in
detail) was invariably the most thoughtful, evenhanded, and eminently
reasonable approach imaginable, while the position of his opponents
could only be explained in terms of crazed megalomania and self in
dulgence on a massive scale: Nowhere is there a hint that reasonable
people can differ over public policy deCisions, even when they ad-
vocate on behalf of justifiably distinct constituencies- politica"y,
geographically and socio-economically. Nor, even a consideration that
someone else could be right.
The crux of the Mayor's problem is that he simply doesn't understand
the nature of, nor appreciate the necessity for neighborhood advocacy.
For those of us who work in or alongside the neighborhood housing
movement, the issue is so obvious that it hardly merits further debate.
Nevertheless, for those who haven't suffered through long discussions
of advocacy and pluralism versus objectivity and consensus in society,
a few observations on the current controversy might be in order.
It is no accident that the four examples the Mayor was able to cite in
his diatribe against the "outbreak of selfishness" among community
groups all involved low income neighborhoods. Koch knows better
than to try to put a prison or a solid waste disposal facility in high in-
come neighborhoods where his political and financial support base is
concentrated. His belated placement of 25 homeless men in the Park
Avenue armory rated front page and prime time coverage for just that
reason. This blatant conflict of interests is exactly why there must be
advocates and street demonstrators and, yes, maybe even the odd
radical, to provide honest opposition to the power structure. How else
can the poor and other traditionally disenfranchised minorities in this
society balance the political scales? How can they ever afford to buy
politicians for their very own as the wealthy seem to do? How else can
they get the Mayor' s attention- over cocktails at Elaine's? How else
can they muster enough public support to force even the grudging com
promises that they occasionally wring out of this administration?
Ironica"y, the level of rhetoric employed by the Koch administration
has inspired, if anything, more vocal and more flamboyant opposition
to his attacks on low income neighborhoods than had he pursued a
more moderate and reasoned public posture. For this Mayor to rail
against "demagoguery" at this late stage of his career is (for once,
unintentionally) laughable.
A good case in point is called to mind by the Mayor's bitter reference to
the recent $250 sales price controversy involving in rem buildings sold to
non-profit, low-income tenant cooperatives. In order to assure that this
housing remained affordable to low income tenants in the future. many
Continued on page 29
3
Sydenham:
Politics vs. Health Care
By Ebun Adelona
S
YDENHAM HOSPITAL, A
symbol of community resistance to
the cutbacks of the "fiscal crisis," has
stood empty since it was closed in 1980.
Now, the Koch administration has an-
nounced, it is to be turned over to a com-
munity group for the construction of sub-
sidized housing for the elderly. This move
comes in spite of both widespread com-
munity protest and longstanding, viable
plans for a health center at the hospital.
What are the issues at Sydenham? For
the people of Harlem, they are simple and
basic: Taxpayers have a right to tax-
supported health services; health needs -
not politics - should determine health
planning; people in Harlem's com-
munities have the experience and the ex-
pertise to determine what kind of health
care best suits their needs.
The Right to Health Care
When newly elected Mayor Edward I.
Koch took office in 1977, the Emergency
Financial Control Board had already
superceded New York's representative
government. Controlled by the city's
banking and business concerns, the
EFCB declared that public services must
be shrunk. Following those dictates,
Koch vowed to eliminate those services he
said consumed the most tax dollars. The
City University system, public schools
and health services were at the top of his
list.
Fairly promptly, the city universities
were' turned over to the state as tuition
was imposed, many public schools were
closed, and the assault began on health
services.
Koch, acting upon his often stated
belief that the poor and blacks don't vote,
also began to make plans to give away
municipal hospitals, cut back on preven-
tative and primary care services by the
Department of Health and targeted two
hospitals for closing: Sydenham and
Metropolitan.
The communities of Harlem and East
Harlem responded. These were good
hospitals providing needed services.
The Coalition to Save Sydenham,
which had been formed in 1975 under the
leadership of Board member Diane
Lacey, who is now a member of Health
and Hospitals Corporation, was ac-
tivated. The Coalition to Save
Metropolitan, under the leadership of
Emilio Morante, was formed.
The Black and Latino communities
united and devised strategies to fight the
closings. These included legal tactics,
heiUth planning, rallies and lobbying
elected officials. In the spring of 1980, as
Sydenham was about to be closed, the
hospital was taken over, and re-opened
under a People's Administration. This
courageous act brought national and in-
ternational attention. It also brought pro-
mises of government funding to continue
health services at the site. Neither of these
moves dissuaded the city which closed
Sydenham's doors.
Metropolitan Hospital was saved as an
"Outpatient Demonstration" project;
the newly created Harlem Health Services
Research and Development Corporation
(HHSRDC) advocated that Sydenham
Correction
There were two errors in January's
issue. Ruth Sjogren's ("People: Organize
and Organize!") maiden name is Zucker-
man, not Gluckman. Also, the 97 percent
white co-ops along Grand Street on the
Lower East Side (Letters, editorial
response) are not all Mitchell Lamas, but
were constructed as state-aided, limited
dividend housing. 0
4
be run as a community hospital
receiving its share of Medicaid and
Medicare funds. Funding for health ser-
vices was approved by the federal and
state governments. Only the city dragged
its feet, refusing to turn over the building.
Thus, the Northern Manhattan area,
which had lost five hospitals already, was
deprived of another hospital, as well as
the tax dollars which would support it.
This area has traditionally been
underserved. While 56 percent of the
health dollars spent in Manhattan go into
eleven hospitals located along Manhat-
tan's East Side, Harlem must scramble
along with the rest of Manhattan for the
remaining health dollars.
From the end of the occupation of
Sydenham .in 1980, to the present,
Sydenham Hospital has been vacant. The
Harlem community's vigilance has forced
the Koch administration to maintain the
building and keep a security force there.
Over one million dollars per year since
1980 has been spent to prevent viable
health services from being placed in the
building. It's only use under this Koch-
style detention has been the shooting of a
Woody Allen movie inside it.
Health Care Needs
. .. and Consumers be Damned
In 1977, then federal Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare Joseph
Califano declared Harlem a health
disaster area. Central and West Harlem
were also designated as medically
underserved. The death statistics also
demonstrate the need for health services.
In Manhattan, while between 13 and 16
of every 1,000 babies die, in Central
Harlem, 25 of each 1,000 die. Of every
100,000 Kips-Bay and Yorkville
residents, 850 died in 1979. The rate in
Central Harlem is 54 percent higher.
Twenty out of every 100,000 residents
in New York City became ill from T.B. in
Demonstrators protesting {he closing of Sydenham Hospital in 1980.
1979. In Central Harlem, it was 51 out of
every 100,000.
For the past fifteen years, Harlem
residents have attempted to work within
the existing governmental structures to
plan for services that would meet our
needs and lower the alarmingly high
death rates among our people.
The Harlem Health Alliance, under the
leadership of Marshall England, produc-
ed a health plan for Harlem under the
aegis of the Lindsay administration. The
plan was never implemented. During the
middle 1970's, Harlem residents actively
participated in the Comprehensive
Health Planning Agency, yet health ser-
vices in Harlem continued to decrease
even as spending for health care rose alar-
mingly in the city.
Finally, in 1977, residents were given
the hope of participating in the planning
of ambulatory clinics that were intended
to supplement - not replace - existing
services. Before the ink was dry on these
agreements, the Koch administration
moved to close two pediatric clinics and
well baby clinics, in addition to stating
that establishing ambulatory clinics was
. justification for closing Sydenham
altogether.
The federal Health Systems Agency,
made up of consumers and providers of
health services, which was designed to
plan for services quickly caved in before
the joint pressure of both partisan politics
and the powerful domination of volun-
tary hospitals. This dual domination has
watched as the cost of health care has
risen dramatically, while access of Blacks,
poor and working class New Yorkers to
medical treatment has decreased. We find
ourselves continually excluded from
health service decisions which affect our
lives.
It is for this reason that, two years after
the closing of Sydenham, we continue to
fight for community-run health services
in the Sydenham building.
Community as Expert
The proposal submitted to the Health
and Hospitals Corporation by the
HHSRD for the re-use of Sydenham was
developed through a two-year communi-
ty needs assessment process. It consisted
of analysis of Department of Health data,
five health planning conferences involv-
ing Harlem residents, a street survey of
2,000 people between 96th and 181st
Streets, questionnaires to all health
5
facilities in the northern Manhattan area,
a survey of pharmacies and a door-to-
door survey of 83 buildings in the West
Harlem area.
In February, 1982, following three
community hearings, the HHSRD sub-
mitted a proposal for a multiservice
center at Sydenham, that would be run by
a cooperative corporation operated by all
groups sharing space in the building. The
plan - a model for improving the health
status of Harlem residents - has never
been reviewed by the Koch administra-
tion.
Health or Housing?
Most definitely there is a need for hous-
ing of all types in our community. But,
given the large number of abandoned
I:! buildings, is it really necessary to turn
~ hospitals into housing?
~ We believe that the Koch administra-
:5 tion has a tiger by the tail. Sydenham has
cost Koch the gubernatorial primary; it
has become a political liability to him.
Still, his policy of decimating services in
Harlem dictates that he not turn the
building over to HHSRD and other
groups which advocate a multiservice
center on the site, cooperatively owned by'
participating groups. It is our belief that
since thousands struggled to save
Sydenham, no single group should own
the building.
. In the face of Black unity, Koch needed
a quisling, and Fred Samuels served him
up one. A "community" group was
found to do Koch's bidding. Housing for
seniors would alter the building struc-
turally, leaving no room for health ser-
vices. In this way it is ensured that never
again would Sydenham be a hospital.
Sydenham has become for Hariemites,
and for Blacks throughout the city, a
symbol. It signals our determination to
revitalize our communities, to improve
the health of our people, and to exercise
political power. We believe that there is
no democracy in this city if we as a people
are denied the right to control those in-
stitutions which affect our lives. 0
Ebun Adelona is a registered nurse and is
active in a variety of health advocacy
coalitions.
CITY L1MITSIFebruary 1983
The Sacking of Midwood Gardens
By Michael Henry Powell
I
NSIDE SOPHIA BENITIZ'S
apartment at 5110 19th Avenue in
Brooklyn, it is hard to believe the condi-
tions of the building one has just walked
through. A neat, tightly packed kitchen,
living room and bedroom form a warm,
inviting enclave for Sophia and her small,
outgoing son Gabriel. She has lived in this
Bensonhurst apartment since 1975 and
enjoys the neighborhood. But life at the
apartment complex,known as Midwood
Gardens, is not without pressure. If her
powerful landlord, Lawrence Rezak, who
owns over 250 Brooklyn properties, wins
a series of court cases against her, she will
soon share the fate of 670 former
residents and neighbors who no longer
live in the apartments. Over the last two
years, while the local community, politi-
cians and city agencies seemingly turned
their collective back, Midwood Gardens
has been emptied out.
Today, the II-building complex bears
not even a passing resemblance to a
garden. Six structures, formerly home to
400 residents, stand vacant, gutted and
awaiting rehabilitation. The other five
buildings, spread over a six-block area in-
terspaced with neatly maintained single-
family homes, now house no more than
thirty of 300 original tenants.
Yet Midwood Gardens is not in a slum
or even the type of marginal neighbor-
hood where such conditions garner
knowing nods of the head. Rather, the
complex is part of Borough Park, a
neighborhood described by the New York
Times in May, 1982, as "one of the most
ambitious centers of residential real estate
activity in the city." And the six vacant
buildings are now slated to be turned into
condominiums selling for between
$125,000 and $150,000 apiece. Unfor-
tunately for Midwood Gardens' 700
original tenants, their apartments were
simply worth more empty than occupied.
Many of these tenants were Hispanic,
others older whites. Borough Park is
largely Hasidic.
these suspicions; according to the Com-
munity Advocate, a newspaper published
by the South Brooklyn Community
Organization, a group receiving $75,000
in HPD Funding, "A blight in the midst of
A Borough Park is being eradicated." The
-
... article later approvingly quoted Rezak's
description of the building, "When I
bought it, a large number of the tenants
were obviously hard-core criminals .. .
There was no choice but to move all the
tenants out."
"Ever since Lawrence Rezak, the
landlord, bought the buildings in 1979 we
have had nothing but trouble," related
Benitiz. A strong, soft-spoken woman,
she has tried to organize a tenant associa-
tion since Rezak took over. "It wasn't
easy. They started cutting off services to
people, paying some to leave, stopped
screening tenants and the, well, the fires
started. "
Although no culprit was ever iden-
tified, 43 fires hit the eleven-building
complex between 1980 and the end of
1981, according to data collected by the
City'S Arson Strike Force. In 1845 52nd
Street, eight out of the fourteen fires were
rated incendiary - arson - by the in-
specting fire marshals. Three more were
rated suspicious. Yet none of the fires
damaged more than 15 percent of the
building.
No available evidence links the owner
to the fires. There is little doubt, however,
that the fires helped convince people to
relocate. According to Benitiz, "tenants
started telling me that they were being
threatened by arson, that people were tell-
ing them to get out before the fires."
Eric Jacob of the Arson Strike Force
added, "When the vast majority of fires
damage no more than 15 percent of the
building, you naturally think that
whoever was setting the fires did not want
to level the building." And Steve Dobkin,
a legal services lawyer representing the
tenants in housing court pointed out , "At
the very least, the fires created the proper
atmosphere. "
The local community does not share
6
Few local elected officials or City agen-
cies have questioned Rezak's assertions.
While his Borough Park condominiums
will be privately financed, city-sponsored
rehabilitations in the Flatbush section of
Brooklyn have garnered him $1,141,417
to date. He is also awaiting approval of
other low-interest loans - described by
HPD as "in the pipeline" that could total
$8,805,000.
Yet the tenants' application for a 7A
administrator, an HPD, court-mandated
and supervised program that allows an
outside manager to temporarily take over
a building'S rent collection and repairs,
was rejected. HPD, according to Benitiz,
"told us we did not have enough tenants
left. Then, when we said we would com-
bine in one building, they told us we lack-
ed 'community support.'"
She does not contest this last assertion.
In letters and petitions to the court, the
tenant association has been reviled by
local community organizations, the
chairman of Community Board 12 and
virtually every elected official. The
tenants finally contacted Manhattan
Councilwoman Ruth Messinger, and she
arranged another meeting with HPD.
Benitiz is trying to remain optimistic.
"Maybe if people hear what is happen-
ing down here, they'll help," she com-
mented as we walked through the snow
outside her apartment." 1 am a little
discouraged because so many institutions
have ignored us. But maybe we'll get
lucky." D
Tenants oj 506 W. 41nd St . . Dorothy Mo/ins OliverGrb
MaryAaalllS
Harassment Fines for 42nd St. Owners
Two convicted arsonists and a
Brooklyn developer were among six men
found guilty of harassment that forced
over 80 tenant families to flee their homes
on West 42nd Street near Tenth Avenue
in Manhattan.
The Rent Control Division of the city's
housing department levied a total of
$62,000 in fines and civil penalties in late
December for the unlawful harassment of
tenants of 500-502,506 West 42nd Street
and 567 Tenth Avenue. In addition, the
buildings, including vacant apartments,
were returned to the city's rent control
system.
Fines totaling $28,000 were imposed on
convicted arsonist, Ralph Sperling, who
served as the buildings' manager, and
Henry A. Roth, who is currently develop-
ing a federally subsidized Section 8
rehabilitation project in the Sunset Park
section of Brooklyn and is president of
the 10th Avenue Development Corpora-
tion.
Also found guilty and charged $32,000
were convicted arsonist Joseph Bald, Abe
Sloan, also known as Abe Slochowsky,
and 500 West 42nd Street, Inc. Headed by
Bald, this company redeemed the
buildings from city tax foreclosure for
over $500,000 in November, 1979, and
then transferred the property to Roth.
Tenants brought charges of harass-
ment in June, 1980, and hearings began in
December of that year. Although hear-
ings were completed at the end of 1981, it
took until December, 1982, before Rent
Control Commissioner Robert Muniz
signed the order.
The decision said the object of the
harassment was to vacate the buildings in
order to profit from their sale or develop-
ment. As recently as this past November,
attempts to achieve that goal were con-
tinuing. A wrecking crew with an illegally
issued demolition permit tore down two
of the vacant buildings. Intervention by
police and tenants blocked the destruc-
tion of the entire site.
The issuance of the harassment fin-
dings bars any development of the site
without a special agreement from Hous-
ing Commissioner Anthony Gliedman.
Three of those found guilty, Bald,
7
Sperling and Siochowsky were all in-
dicted as part of an arson for profit ring in
1980. Bald, who is cooperating with the
prosecution, and Slochowsky are on trial
in both Brooklyn and the Bronx.
At the harassment hearings, Roth
denied any involvement with the ac-
tivities. The decison, however, stated that
"Roth was clearly the dominant per-
sonality behind the scenes ultimately
responsible for actions by everyone in a
management position from November 2,
1979 to August 5, 1980."
Tenants at the buildings said their cur-
rent managers, working for Henry Roth,
are still harassing them. Larry Flowers
vice president of the tenants' association,
said that in recent weeks windows have
been smashed, meters removed from oc-
cupied apartments and doors to outside
entrances ripped away.
Throughout this time, tenants manag-
ed to maintain an organization, working
closely with a local group, the Housing
Conservation Coordinators. One tenant
who is also an organizer with H.C.C.,
Daniel Hazelkorn, said "In these
buildings you have to sleep with one eye
open."O S.B.
Rent Laws Due for an Overhaul By P.J. Kamens
T
HIS JUNE, THE STATE LAWS
regulating rents and evictions in over
a million New York City apartments are
due to expire. Tenant and landlord
groups are now gearing up for the
legislative debate in Albany, with both
sides agreed that the current tenant pro-
tection system has grown unworkable.
Tenant advocates are looking to the new-
ly elected Governor and their own
organized constituenciel' as key factors in
shaping the fmallegislation.
The vast majority of New York's
regulated apartments-around 875,000
- are covered by the rent stabilization
system, which was established through
the Emergency Tenant Protection Act
(ETPA). This law says tenants who live in
buildings constructed before 1947, and
who moved into their homes since 1971,
are covered under rent stabilization. The
ETPA ensures that rents in the over-
whelming majority of stabilized apart-
ments don't increase above a maximum
percentage determined armually. It also
guarantees tenants the right to renewal
leases and protects them against evictions
at die whim of owners.
But tenant activists hope to gain more
in this year's legislative session than an ex-
tension of the ETP A. They agree that the
present system permits overly generous
rent increases and suffers from weak or
nonexistent enforcement. One reason for
that, tenants contend, is the Rent Stabili-
zation Association (RSA), a landlord
group established by law, whose dues
finance the Conciliation and Appeals
Board (CAB), the enforcement arm of
the rept regulatory system. Tenants ac-
cuse the RSA of underfunding the CAB,
creating a huge administrative backlog
and using its money instead to lobby
against tenant protections. All tenant
groups favor its elimination.
The other problem tenants cite is the
Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), the body
which annually determines across the
board rent increases to be allowed in the
city's rent stabilization units. Since 1974,
RGB guidelines have allowed total in-
creases ranging from 50 percent to 300
percent in stabilized apartments, depend-
ing upon the length of leases signed and
the number of times apartments have
changed tenancy.
Tenants' Alternatives
Although alternative tenant protection
bills have not yet been introduced in the
state legislature, tenant groups are
preparing to sponsor various proposals.
The New York State Tenant and Neigh-
borhood Coalition (NYSTNC), a state-
wide tenant organization with about 70
member groups, listed the critical issues in
its most recent newsletter.
The NYSTNC proposals would extend
protection to units which are presently
unregulated, including most buildings
with fewer than 6 units and those which
have undergone substantial rehabilitation
since 1973. NYSTNC supports coverage
of buildings owned by non-profit land-
lords,which are not used s'olely for institu-
tional purposes, and prohibiting evictions
in buildings converted to institutional use.
Under the coalition's proposals, hotel
tenants, presently regulated under a
separate rent protection system, would
enjoy the right of stabilized tenants to
one, two or three year leases. And their
eJ apartments would no longer be subject to
~ vacancy decontrol, under which units
~ become unregulated as tenants move out.
~ Buildings granted tax abatements under
~ the city's "J-51" and "421" rehabilita-
~ tion programs would continue under rent
8
At the Rent Guidelines Board meeting, June 1982.
regulation even after the tax benefits ex-
pire, according to the group's position.
The NYSTNC proposals also deal with
the basic problem of rent levels. One goal
is the elimination of the vacancy
allowance, which permits landlords to
obtain additional rent increases when
tenants move. The coalition also supports
an improved formula for granting land-
lords hardship increases, based on ex-
amining individual financial records for a
true picture of profitability.
Another group, the Coalition Against
Rent Increase Passalongs (CARIP), an
organization of over 60 tenant groups,in-
cluding the citywide Metropolitan Coun-
cil on Housing, favors the reintroduction
this year of the Flynn-Dearie bill. This
comprehensive tenant protection law
would replace the current chaotic system
of rent regulation its supporters say.
Flynn-Dearie would combine rent con-
trolled and rent stabilized apartments
under one system, along with hotels and
residential lofts. Like the NYSTNC pro-
posals, it would extend tenant protections
to presently unregulated types of housing.
Supporters consider its most important
feature, however, to be the elimination of
automatic rent increases. "Flynn-Dearie
will brake the present rent spiral which is
outrageously out of hand," says Jane
Benedict, chair of Met Council. Under
the law, rent increases would be permitted
only if individual landlords opened their
books to prove they couldn't get a
reasonable rate of return; even these in-
creases would be limited to 7 \12 percent
per year. Temporary increases would be
permitted under Flynn-Dearie to cover
the cost of major capital improvements.
Unlike the practice under present law, the
rent would be rolled back once the
improvements are paid for and would be
subject to a 10 percent cap. Another im-
portant feature of the proposed law
would require landlords to register apart-
ments' legal rents so tenants could easily
determine if they were overcharged.
Under the present rent stabilization
system, no central record-keeping is re-
quired. According to John McKean, co-
chair of CARlP, this results, in "de/acto
vacancy decontrol." Flynn-Dearie also
provides for added eviction protections.
Prospects for Improvement
Prospects for passage of improved ten-
ant protections in Albany this year are
uncertain. "Whatever passes will be a
negotiated bill, reflecting the competing
interests of the Senate, which wants pro-
landlord changes, and the Assembly,
which wants pro-tenant changes," pre-
dicts NYSTNC's Michael McKee. Tenant
activists note that Flynn-Dearie passed in
the Democratic Assembly for the last two
years but was killed without being per-
mitted to come to a vote in the
Republican-controlled Senate.
This year, legislators plan to propose a
strengthened extension of ETP A as an
alternative, according to Danny Con-
viser, a spokesperson for Assemblyman
Pete Grannis, Democrat of Manhattan.
Although the bill' s provisions are not in
final form, they are expected to eliminate
the RSA, provide for triple damages for
rent overcharges and extend coverage to
smaller buildings.
What happens in Albany this year will
depend in large part on two factors out-
side the legislative chambers. One is
Governor Mario Cuomo, whose cam-
paign promised support for the "prin-
ciples" of Flynn-Dearie. Tenants believe
his active involvement in the legislative
battle for tenant protection could
significantly affect the outcome.
The other factor will be the strength of
grassroots support for improved legisla-
tion in the face of anticipated landlord
challenge, including attacks on the "war-
ranty of habitability" and sublet provi-
sions which presently protect all rental
Racial Suit SeHied
A class action suit over racial
discrimination at a large state-aided
Brooklyn apartment complex has
resulted in a negotiated agreement that
calls for establishment of a new list of
minority apartment seekers. Warbasse
Houses, a state Mitchell - Lama
cooperative of 2,600 units, is currently 99
percent white. The suit was filed on
behalf of four black plaintiffs by the
Open Housing Center, a private non-
profit equal housing advocacy organiza-
tion, in 1980.
The consent order, which was signed
by Federal Judge Thomas Platt, provides
that a list of up to 215 eligible minority
applicants will be established with an ad-
ditional reserve list from those respon-
ding to a series of newspaper ads.
As apartments become available ,they
will be offered to those on
the list at an agreed upon ratio. Apart-
ment turnover at the complex averages
100 uni ts per year, according to Open
Housing Center director Betty Hoeber.
Warbasse Houses were built by the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union
in 1964. Its five 23 story buildings are
located on West 5th Street in Brighton
Beach. The settlement of the suit was
negotiated by Richard F. Bellman and
Karene A. Freeman, attorneys for the
Open Housing Center, and Lawrence
Grosberg, director of the Columbia
University Law School Fair Housing
Clinic. D T.R.
New Chief
for Ctty-ownecl
Buildings
Joseph Shuldiner, assistant commis-
sioner of the city housing department's
Division of Evaluation and Compliance
for the past three years, has been ap-
pointed deputy commissioner for the Of-
fice of Property Management.
He replaces William Eimicke who has
joined Gov. Cuomo' s staff as deputy
secretary for policy and programs.
As deputy commissioner, Shuldiner
9
housing. "The type of law we get will de-
pend on how well tenants mobilize and
organize so that legislators, especially the
Republicans, will feel the heat," says
McKee. He adds that NYSTNC is plan-
ning strategy and organizing meetings for
members starting in February and tenant
lobbying in Albany May 9 and 10.
"We intend to organize tenants as far
and deep and wide as possible," promises
Benedict; Met Council and CARIP plan
to have tenant leaders lobbying in Albany
every week beginning at the end of
January, with a major mobilization
scheduled for May 18. "We plan to turn
the spotlight on politicians who confuse
and mislead their constituents by
sponsoring tenant protection bills and not
supporting them," adds McKean. 0
P.l. Kamens is an attorney who works
primarily with housing issues.
will be responsible for the city's entire tax-
foreclosed housing stock, which includes
all the city-owned properties in central
management, the alternative manage-
ment programs, urban renewal sites, and
emergency housing.
The city is currently landlord to 9,800
buildings, including 4,000 that are oc-
cupied with a total of 37,500 apartments.
Shuldiner has been employed at the
city's Department of Housing Preser -
vation and Development for the past ten
years. Prior to serving as assistant com-
missioner in evaluation and compliance
from 1979 until now, he was director of
operations of that unit for one-and-one-
half years. Before joining this division, he
served as director of the housing litigation
bureau and as an attorney for that office.
A graduate of Columbia Law School,
Shuldiner, 37, is married. He and his wife
live in Manhattan with their five-year-old
son.
Harold M. Shultz, currently director of
operations at evaluation and compliance,
will serve as acting assistant commis-
sioner. D S.B.
Community
Mobilizes
to Save
Green point's
Clinics
By Susan Baldwin
A
COALITION OF TENANT AND
community groups committed to
keeping the satellite clinic open at the now
closed Greenpoint Hospital have issued a
list of demands to the city's Health and
Hospitals Corporation. HHC is the agen-
cy responsible for providing health care
services in the municipal hospital system.
installing chain link
at Greenpoint Hospital.
The group came into existence in
November, 1982, following the closing of
the then 69-year-old hospital and the
opening of the new multi-million dollar
Woodhull Hospital several miles away.
At that time, it was feared that the
vacated hospital buildings might be
vulnerable to arson. In addition to keep-
ing the on-site Greenpoint hospital clinic
open, the coalition is asking that (1) HHC
provide better advertisement and promo-
tion of the clinic so that it is better utiliz-
ed; (2) a 24-hour trauma unit and geriatric
service be maintained at the clinic; (3) two
additional satellite clinics be added in the
north Brooklyn area; (4) more beds be
certified at the Woodhull hospital; (5)
conditions in terms of the physical plant
be substantially improved at Woodhull;
and (6) there be a freeze in further labor
lay-offs at Woodhull.
According to Gary Hattem, executive
director of St. Nicholas Housing and
Neighbrohhod Preservation Corpora-
tion, one of the coalition founders, this
grassroots organization is working to im-
prove the emergency medical services for
the greater Greenpoint area. At least one
death - that of an 81-year-old man who
died of a heart attack December 21- can
be attributed to the poor and confused
ambulance servi ce in the,north Brooklyn
community, Hattem charged.
More than 206 com munity represen-
tatives met with HHC officials January
13 to air some of the problems covered in
the coalition's demands. Originally,
HHC commissioner Stanley Brezenoff
was to meet with the group but refused at
the last moment.
The coalition was expected to picket his
home late in January to protest his ap-
parent lack of concern about this com-
munity's deteriorating health care ser-
Vl vices.
According to Thomas D. Riche, vice
z
president in charge of communications
for HHC, the Greenpoint facility, built in
a 1913 and "resembling a 19th century
u
hospital," is too obsolete and costly to
maintain over any extended period of
10
time. "We are already $4 million over our
budget just in opening Woodhull," he
asserted.
Noting that the hospital's heating
system was an old-fashioned, hand-
stoked coal burner, Riche said,
"Whatever you could do to keep this
facility, the rehabilitation would be ex-
tremely high." He also pointed out that
HHC considered it a "misuse of funds to
use dollars earmarked for patient care to
maintain an empty building."
Responding to the coalition's
demands, Riche said that HHC was
about to make a decision regarding two
possible satellite clinic sites in north
Brooklyn, one of which is very near to the
hospital. He also stressed that the present
clinic, which, he maintained, only serves
ten patients a day, will be kept open until
the replacement is in service.
Riche also reported that 102 beds were
certified at Woodhull and that 30 more
would soon be open.
In addition, he said that 125 employes
had been laid off at Woodhull and that of
that number, 80 were per diem workers
who signed agreements knowing that
their work would end once the transition
period between the Greenpoint closing
and the Woodhull opening was over.
None of these employes, he stressed, are
part of the nursing staff.
A public hearing to discuss the transfer
of the Greenpoint facility to the jursidic-
tion of the city's Department of General
Services was reset for February 8 in
downtown Brooklyn. Originally, it was to
be held January 10 in Manhattan.
According to Riche, HHC is firm in its
decision not to reopen Greenpoint on a
full scale or use it permanently for health
care-related services.
Members of the coalition, in addition
to Hattem's organization, are the Peoples
Fire House, the National Congress of
Neighborhood Women, Williamsburg
Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Our Lady
of Snow Society, Community Board HI, .
Los Sures, Conselyea Block Association,
and Local 420, District Council 37.0
I
--------------Co-op Conversion---------------
By Tim Ledwith
T
ENANTS AT GLEN OAKS VILLAGE, A 32-YEAR-
old, 2,800-apartment complex near the Nassau County
line in Queens, are waiting for the completion of building
repairs ordered in a court agreement that ended their million .
dollar rent strike last spring. Meanwhile, the garden apartment
development's owner continues an ambitious campaign to sell
apartments at Glen Oaks, which began a "non-eviction"
cooperative conversion plan-under which tenants who don't
want to buy are supposed to be able to stay put-two years
ago. In an unusual twist, occupied apartments are being of-
fered for sale not only to current residents, over half of whom
are tenants covered by the city's rent stabilization law, but also
to outsiders who want to become mini-landlords. Many
tenants, wary because of the landlord's lackluster record,
believe the campaign is a way for him to, in effect, "abandon"
their homes.
The Pitch
The Glen Oaks sales pitch, carried in print, broadcast and
even billboard advertising throughout the metropolitan area, .
started late last year. One newspaper ad shows a butler taking a r.rn a 'O'ftil' .
break from his chores to tell the reader: "I'm a landlord. . . I 'UIIO''''
and I love it!" The servant points out the advantages of o,ioQetup otthe crOCk IU ... and I I .
at this small Glen Oaks V.illage is SOmeftJiflg ftJat 11rfOWn to make breoci lOVe If!
"prune New York CIty pr?perty that. gIves me !ncome, I OWn 0 figs me Onice batch other I}9ople. '
tax shelter and the potentIal for eqUIty appreCiatIOn, 'he ex- CUrrently OCCU I
claims. The rest of the pitch outlines the deal's basic terms: P ed CO-op OpO 80ch
one, two and three bedroom apartments are available from 'his for 0 I er, Ond the that gives me rtrnem at Glen Oaks
$13,000 to $20,625, and the road to riches can begin with as lit- dOWn tlOI tor eqUity ore
ntal
Income
tie as $3,250 down. . acome me ond thel':Jld 0 totol Price Of PPrec/otlon. AI;
A call to the Glen Oaks sales office attracted a more detaIled GIl ' nctrec1s of other $13,0001
explanation of the offer. Since occupied apartments are 'en a k Drkers Who have
covered by the non-eviction co-op plan, the sales representative 'a. S
I
1, 2 I 'ape
TOke from It. 3.bedrOOm
Go .<:n ..... Grona ('An+._. _ $13.Dnn._ go,,.,,,,,_
11 CITY LIMITS/February 1983
'}

j
said, "If you're interested in immediate occupancy, this plan
isn't for you." Still, she added, owners are entitled to writing
off their bank loan financing and monthly maintenance fees as
100 percent tax deductible." Beyond tax advantages, the
representative said, monthly rents ranging up to $275, with an-
nual increases guaranteed under rent stabilization, sweeten the
deal. So does 1 4 ~ percent bank financing arranged through
the plan's sponsor for up to three quarters of the purchase
price.
Even owners' responsibilities were described in hard-to-
resist tenns. The sales representative said these include main-
taining all tenant utilities and appliances within an apartment.
The cooperative corporation, which collects monthly
maintenance fees from all owners, is responsible for keeping
up building systems and all exterior conditions. And for the
first three years of ownership, under the outsiders Purchase ar-
rangement, management services such as rent collection and
lease renewal are provided free of charge.
All in all, the deal sounded attractive enough to be
something that could, as the butler in Glen Oaks' ad puts it,
bring in "a nice batch of dough for myself each month."
Tenant Reaction
This sales campaign is only the latest in a series of similar ef-
forts conducted by Glen Oaks' owner, Gerald Guterman, since
the complex's coop conversion plan was approved by the state
in October, 1980. And like previous campaigns, it hasn't been
a spectacular success. In November, 1982, at the start of the
latest campaign, the landlord told state officials he held shares
for 1,800 Glen Oaks apartments. According to papers filed by
Guterman with the Conciliation and Appeals Board, the en-
forcement arm of the city's rent stabilization system, in
January, he still owned 1,700 of them.
The situation in occupied units that have been bought by
outsiders was uncertain, according to tenant leaders at Glen
Oaks. Bernice Siegel, who heads the development's tenants
association said in January that her group was only just begin-
ning to assess the mini-landlords' performance. But in general,
Siegel said, "It's a problem." She noted one instance in which
an apartment owner refused to offer his tenant the option of
signing a three year lease, even though the rent stabilization law
requires that option. This and similar problems arose, Siegel
stated, because "these new landlords don't understand what
their responsibilities are. We don't know who's telling these
people what their responsibilities are, what their legal obliga-
tions are, not to mention their moral obligations."
Other tenants said the question of responsibility went
beyond the mini-landlords and directly to Guterman. "It's
abandonment," Penny LaForest, a former tenants association
vice chairperson said of the sales effort . "In the South Bronx,
they burn. In Queens, maybe because we're more middle class
and they can't shake things up as much, they co-op. All he
[Guterman] is holding on to is the financial interest in the pro-
perty, not any of the responsibility."
Legal Skinnilhes
And Guterman has an unimpressive record in those apart- .
ments where he is still responsible for maintenance and ser-
vices, tenants said. Their observation has been reflected in
CITY LIMITS/February 1983 12
numerous recent landlord/tenant conflicts at the complex.
Three of those took place at the Conciliation and Appeals
Board, where Glen Oaks tenants won three recent rulings
against Guterman. In one, the enforcement board decided that
brokers' fees paid by new tenants in 1981 to parties closely
related to Guterman were illegally collected. The CAB also
agreed with tenant charges that, in documents filed to get
clearance for the co-op conversion, the owner lied about hav-
ing done extensive rewiring at Glen Oaks. In the third case, the
board confmneda complaint that Guterman had withdrawn
' laundry services, in violation of the rent stabilization law. That
statute calls for prior approval of any change in the level of ser-
vices for stabilized tenants.
Guterman is appealing the first two rulings, but appears to
be complying with the last one.
Whether the owner is complying fully with another, more
serious legal agreement is an open question. This one was sign-
ed in May, 1982, and required Guterman to make major
repairs in the complex's many deteriorating rental units. The
settlement, made in Queens civil court under Judge Lester
Sachs, ended a rent strike that started in December, 1980, and
eventually involved 350 tenants withholding more than a
million dollars in rent.
Under the accord, all but $175,000 was returned to the
landlord. Ronald J. Rosenberg, the Glen Oaks tenants' at-
torney, said the settlement was prompted in part by procedural
"irregularities" which occurred during the case and made
tenants want to "salvage what we could get." The money is
still being withheld, pending a court decision on whether
Guterman has completed the ordered repairs.
Although the court agreement technically allowed just three
months for the work to be done, Rosenberg said the tenants
had not yet pressed the matter as a sign of "manifest good
faith. "
Prior to a December court appearance on the matter, the
Glen Oaks tenants association conducted a maintenance
survey to check on the owner's progress. According to the
results, many earlier problems, including roach infestation,
broken concrete on walks and stairs, peeling paint and poor
outside lighting remained. In mid-January, according to te-
nant leader Siegel, there was "a lot of work going on allover,"
but she questioned the quality of many repairs. Further inspec-
tions by both tenant and landlord representatives, and a
meeting with Judge Sachs, were expected by early February.
The tenant leader added that other harassment complaints
involved alleged nuisance legal actions on Guterman's part,
"like tenants receiving three day notices and notices to cure
when they had already paid the rent."
Siegel said representatives from the Attorney General's of-
fice attended a meeting with about 500 tenants at Glen Oaks
last fall to hear residents' specific grievances. In November, the
tenants association provided the state with testimony and
documents detailing the charges.
A spokesman at the Attorney General's office declined to
comment on the investigation's status in mid-J anuary, but fur-
ther action at the state level appeared to be in the works.
Meanwhile, in its continuing effort to help Guterman get out
from under his problems, the Glen Oaks Village sales office
Ditched on. O
---------------Rent Strikes------ ---------
Tenants in several Clinton buildings
owned by St. Clare's hospital are still
fighting for the repair of housing code
violations despite a court order that told
the landlord to fix them by mid-
December. The tenants' situation is com-
plicated by St. Clare's troubled financial
position, since the buildings could be sold
to help payoff the hospital's enormous
debts.
The 11 tenement buildings involved are
called the 9th Avenue "L" because they
form an "L" shape along 9th Avenue and
West 52nd Street. The buildings were
bought by St. Clare's about a decade ago
when the hospital had plans to increase its
size. In the following years, as expansion
plans collapsed and the institution's fiscal
situation deteriorated, so did conditions
in the L.
In August, 1982, the problems promp-
ted the L's tenants association to start a
rent strike, which 98 of the buildings' 130
families have joined. And in October, the
association initiated 11 actions against the
landlord in housing court. On October
25, Judge Harriet George ordered that
about 500 code violations uncovered by
the legal action, including many im-
mediately hazardous conditions, be
resolved. The deadline for completing
repairs under that order was December
17.
Missing the Deadline
When tenants met the night before that
deadline date, in one of a series of regular
weekly meetings held since the court
order's issuance with hospital officials
who are now managing the L, it seemed
St. Clare's wouldn't finish the work on
time.
Many of the approximately 40
residents at the meeting reported continu-
ing code violations in their buildings. At
that point, surveys completed for seven of
the L buildings showed many remaining
violations .
And a full month after the repair
deadline passed, completed surveys for all
the buildings showed continuing serious
problems, according to tenants associa-
tion secretary Jim Klein. Several of them
pointed out the persistent boiler fumes in
many L buildings, and many tenants con-
firmed the charge. George Hearns, who
RenlSbike
althe
Ninth Ave 'L'
By Tim Ledwith
Ni"th Ave"ue 'L' te"a"tleader Vi"ce"t Mallard.
has lived at 409 West 52nd Street all his
life, complained about sporadic heat and
hot water there. Ramirez Ricardo, of793
Ninth Avenue, said her famil y's apart-
ment still needed bedroom doors, ade-
quate sinks and gas stove repairs.
Alex Nunez, also of 793, has lived at
the L with his family for five years and in
mid-January was appointed superinten-
13
dent of his building. But Nunez said the
hospital had been uncooperative in
resolving 793's electrical problems, roof
leaks, missing garbage facilities and other
continuing violations. "I think that a lot
of the money has been wasted," Nunez
said of the hospital's repair efforts. "In
all fairness," noted tenants association
chairperson Vincent Mallard, "they've
been proceeding with repairs, but it's
always a matter of us having to force
them to take care of things."
In response, Richard Yezzo, St. Clare's
Director of Operations and the L
buildings' registered manager, said: "I
am prepared to go back to court with the
full confidence that the hospital has made
every effort to clear up those violations.
We've poured over $60,000 into those
buildings in the last four months since
we've been in charge."
While one tenant called Yezzo's figure
"inflated", it looked like the buildings'
residents might agree with the manager
on one thing-going back to court. Senti-
ment at a recent tenants' meeting favored
suing St. Clare's unless some drastic
changes in hospital performance happen-
ed soon. The hospital could be charged
with contempt for not repairing the
buildings. If the tenants' suit succeeded,
St. Clare's might have to pay civil
penalties.
Mallard seemed skeptical about the
prospects for improvement. "Not to take
anything away from the people we deal
with in the hospital administration every
day," he remarked, "but the people
upstairs who are calling the shots don't
seem to give a damn."
Who's in Charge
~ The issue of who exactly is calling the
:;; shots at the L is somewhat of a mystery.
~ Yezzo is the buildjngs' registered manag-
<
..J ing agent and the L tenants' regular con-
tact at the hospital. Other, less visible
players seem to have more say in deter-
mining the eventual fate of the buildings.
They are the hospital creditors' commit-
tee and the buildings' owner of record,
the 5253 9th Corporation.
The creditors' committee was created
last year by a bankruptcy court decision
to resolve St. Clare' s $16 million debt.
The 5253 9th Corporation was formed to
take over the buildings' title from the
the creditors' committee and the 5253 9th
Corporation to the next board Steering
Committee meeting. Board Four wished
to receive "complete information on the
status of the bankruptcy proceedings"
and "to answer any questions the com-
mittee may have concerning policy on
rental of apartments which are or which
may become vacant."
But on December 9, when the commit-
tee meeting came around, the two invited
representatives didn't. And neither the
creditors' committee nor the 5253 9th
Corporation has communicated with the
Ltenants or the community board since.
"Creative Solution"
That performance made many L ten-
ants, and other Clinton residents, even
more Uneasy about the future of these
buildings and the neighborhood as a
whole. Said one L tenant: "They're sit-
ting on empty apartments while this com-
munity is desperately in need of low and
moderate income housing."
Ala and Olrmen Nunez. Manuela Roman and Alex Nunez. Jr . in their
aptlrtment at 793 Ninth Avenue.
But tenant leader Mallard, speaking
for the successfully organized L residents,
also envisioned a long range hope emerg-
ing from present distress: "It does not
seem that the hospital can manage these
buildings. The personnel managing and
working to repair them, no matter how
good their intentions are, are overwork-
ed. We're trying to tell them it does not
have to come down to the housing or the
hospital. We're committed to working
out a creative solution to accommodate
both the community's and hospital's
needs." One such possibility, Mallard
suggested, is eventual tenant manage-
ment and ownership of the L, to remove
liability for the buildings from the
troubled institution. 0
hospital.
L tenants fear the two groups may lose
sight of community housing needs in the
effort to resolve St. Clare's debt. "The
buildings are definitely on the market,"
stated the tenants association
secretary. He noted that cosmetic repairs
intended to entice potential buyers had
been performed in buildings where more
serious violations remained.
But managing agent Yezzo has
downplayed the possibility that St.
Clare's creditors would allow the L to be
sold out from under current residents.
"The hospital is not going to force
anyone out on the streets," he told the
Clinton Community Press in September.
"Our plans are focused on straightening
out the records and stabilizing the
facility. "
At an early meeting with
tenants however, Yezzo said L apart-
ments would be sealed and not rented as
they became vacant. "That's a red alert
for people in our situation," association
leader Mallard said.
To help clarify the issues, three
members of Community Board Four,
wrote to Yezzo on November 17. They
asked him to .i' . lrite representatives from
Energy Audits, Specifications and technical
assistance, Investigated contractors. Complete line
of conservation projects at discount, Financing
options.
BROOKLYN ENERGY COOPERATIVE 562 Atlantic Ave. (near 4th Ave.) 858-8803
14

-------------'Inclusionary Zoning' ----- - --------
A People's
Rousing
Tool?
By Phil Tegeler and Paul Davidoff
...
""
<
...J
Z
J:
Q
N
EW YORK IS AT A TURNING
point. We think New York City's
development policies are about to turn in
the direction of meeting the needs of the
people rather than those of the investors.
We see it in the growing recognition of a
need for "inclusionary zoning" controls
that require developers to set aside a por-
tion of their buildings or a portion of their
profits to meet the housing needs of low
and moderate income households. The
idea is emerging slowly but it has drawn
the support of many who are concerned
with New York's future.
The turning point has a spiritual leader
in Governor Cuomo. His important in-
augural address spoke in terms of "fam-
ily" or what many City Limits readers
might call "neighborhood" or "com-
munity." Cuomo asserted: "Those who
made our history taught us above all
things the idea of family, mutuality, the
sharing of benefits and burdens fairly for
the good of all . There's an ideal essential
to our success and no family that favored
its strong children or that in the name of
evenhandedness failed to help its
vulnerable ones would be worthy of the
name. And no state or nation that
chooses ,to ignore its troubled regions and
people, while watching others thrive can
call itself justified." '
The concept of an obligation to care
for all is found in a number of land use
and development policies adopted in the
nation's suburbs over the past decade.
These policies were a response by pro-
gressive suburban communities to the
wholesale exclusion of low income people
and minorities from predominantly white
suburbs.
Today, with Reagan's war of attrition
on the poor in America's cities, "inclu-
sionary zoning" has reemerged in an ur-
ban context as a possible vehicle for local
creation of new low-cost housing units.
This could be especially useful in New
York where the residential real estate
market is booming and shows few signs
of letting up.
Can Zoning be Refonned?
It is natural to be suspicious of zoning
as a people's tool. Zoning is an obscure,
anti-democratic language employed by an
15
elite group of well paid lawyers and plan-
ning technicians. Zoning by its very
nature classifies. It is supposed to classify.
land uses, but throughout its history it has
been used to classify people. In the sub-
urbs, zoning has traditionally provided a
means to maintain single-family property
values and exclude minoritieS. Suburban
zoning ordinances enact contemporary
Brave New Worlds. There are A (Alpha)
zones for good people who live in single
family, detached homes on large lots,
while less worthy people get B and C
zones for more crowded living. The G
(Gamma) people get no zone. They are
lower income households, and they are
unwanted and excluded.
Similarly, as Robert Fitch noted in his
1976 article, "Planning New York," New
York City's "zoning movement" of the
early 20th century was led by an associa-
tion of powerful retail merchants seeking
to remove "hordes" of immigrant gar-
ment workers from Fifth Avenue. Their
efforts resulted in the restriction of the
garment industry to a specific district as
well as various height and bulk restric-
tions. The undesirables had been zoned
out and guaranteed land value had been
zoned in.
In the suburbs, opponents of multi-
family housing used zoning restrictions to
block its co,nstruction. Devices such as a
minimum lot and floor area size, density
restrictions and special permit require-
ments prevented development of housing
On January 20th, the New Jersey
Supreme Court handed down a
unanimous decision on remedies to exclu-
sionary zoning in New Jersey. The opi-
nion requires municipalities to create low
income housing - including "providing
incentives to set aside a portion of their
deve: opments for lower income
housing." The decision win have a strong
influence on the laws in New York State
and the country as a whole, and will help
to shape the campaign for inclusionary
zoning. 0
for lower income families. As more and
more jobs once held by low income and
minority people were relocated to subur-
ban areas in the sixties and seventies, the
results of these restrictions were particu-
larly tragic.
Advocates of equal housing oppor-
tunity realized that while a housing
market might be open and non-
discriminatory among those who could
afford to buy, the income differences bet-
ween blacks and whites acted to exclude
most blacks from a high-priced housing
market. Recognizing this fact, legal
challenges to exclusionary zoning began
to focus on the elimination of re-
quirements that increased the per-unit
cost of housing and prevented the con-
The zoning ordinances of Highland
Park, "Illinois and Montgomery County,
Maryland represent two types of ap-
proaches to the creation of low to
moderate income units. One relies on
development incentives, while the other
takes an across the board approach.
These programs are just a sampling of
some of the approaches that have been
taken in the suburbs.
Highland Park
The zoning ordinance in this suburb of
Chicago is an example of an optional or-
dinance designed to encourage a mix of
housing types. Financed by Section 8
housing subsidies (now virtually non-
existent) the program is based on a den-
sity bonus method. A developer is per-
mitted to increase the density of a project
relative to the low and moderate income
units he provides in a one to two ratio.
For example, a density increase of 1070
over standard zoning density allowances
is allowed if accompanied by low and
moderate income units in 2% of the pro-
ject. The density bonus option is allowed
in any new development and may be exer-
cized for low and moderate income units
forming up to 20% of a project.
Since its inception in 1979, 108 senior
11I!l iII/IIi
. 11/1111
ftHid.
ft
i llC Ii/11M
Ii/II II I III I
. i II II Ci/
il
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till{ j{lilltil
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inciusionary Zoning in the Suburbs
citizen units and 12 family units have been
created under the program, with an addi-
tional 17 units now under construction
for low to moderate income families.
Montgomery County, Maryland,has a
fairly complex, mandatory, zoning or-
dinance requiring that 12% of all new
housing projects include units for sale or
lease at prices fixed by the County. The
ordinance is designed to ensure that
moderate income families have rental or
sale housing at affordable prices. The
only alternative to the ordinance is an at-
cost sale of finished lots from the
developer to the County.
Eligible households receive advance
notice of available units before they are
publicly advertised. A household is con-
sidered eligible if its income is no more
than 200% of the Section 8 limits for very
low income households in the County.
Families are required to complete a
"Certificate of Intended Use" for the
Department of Housing and Community
Development to discourage speculation.
And, for further protection, sales and
rental limits of units resold or rerented
within five years of initial occupancy are
controlled by covenants in the deed of
trust and by agreement of the builder and
16
struction of multifamily housing.
However, these legal victories did not
always require the creation of low income
housing but merely prevented its restric-
tion. Many towns continued to evade
their responsibilities by allowing only
high priced condominium and luxury ren-
tal development. Out of this frustration
came a campaign in some suburban areas
to use the extra profits created by new
development to pay for the inclusion of
low income units. Notable examples in-
clude Highland Park, lllinois, and Mont-
gomery County, Maryland (see box).
From Suburbs to Gty
Recently, inclusionary zoning has
moved out ofthe suburbs. Innovative and
buyer. The range of prices for apartments
in the deed of trust are based on the
number of bedrooms and special
amenities.
As for fmancing, dwelling units may be
constructed under federal, state, or local
housing programs for low and moderate
income households. The fmancing of all
home sales is the responsibility ofthe pur-
chaser who must pay the downpayment
and closing costs. The state agency works
to arrange preferential mortgage treat-
ment.
From 1974 to 1980, low and moderate
income units were offered for sale in ten
different projects. One hundred and nine
affordable units were offered for rent in
seven projects. The average, 1980 selling
price for a single family MPDU was
$45,665. Townhouse and multiple units
were $33,956. The average rental price
was $409 per month. Although this pro-
gram has increased the availability of
moderate income units, there has been
strong opposition from developers and
the public. Serious problems encountered
were the low sales prices and rental limits,
inadequate financing for eligible ap-
plicants, and processing difficulties. O
By Elise du Pont

~ The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board

:t:
I
::s
Cathedr..J Houx
1047 Amsterdam A'ICOue
New Yom. New York 10025
212-749-0602
/I priNte --profit COrponlliOll
Andrew Reicher
PxeclitWe Director
well-publicized urban inclusionary pro-
grams have been implemented in Califor-
nia - in Santa Monica, San Francisco,
and Los Angeles, cities where real estate
development has outpaced creation of
new affordable housing. For example, in
downtown San Francisco, where office
development and new office worker jobs
are being created much faster than new
dwelling units, a "Tandem Housing Re-
quirement" was developed requiring of-
fice building developers to invest in the
creation of housing in the downtown area
for low and moderate income families.
The number of dwelling units mandated
is directly proportional to the total office
space developed. The San Fransciso pro-
gram is just now beginning to bear fruit in
the form of new units and will have to be
closely watched.
New York City has yet to enact an in-
clusionary zoning policy, but precedents
for such a policy already exist in the
special zoning districts around the city
that seek to preserve housing and in the
housing quality program, which creates a
neighborhood amenity package as part of
a developer's bonus allowing a greater
height and total number of units. Even
the' notorious Lincoln West project
managed to provide a token number, five
percent, of low to moderate income hous-
ing units within the development as part
of the "package" negotiated last year to
allow construction of the luxury develop-
ment.
Although opponents of gentrification
ultimately lost most of their demands of
the multimillion dollar development,
Lincoln West was in some ways a water-
shed for the inclusionary zoning move-
ment in New York City. In her dissent to
the City Planning Commission's four to
three approval of the project, City Plann-
ing Commissioner R. Susan Motley called
for a new city policy "that would link
discretionary zoning actions that enhance
the value of property to tangible land-use
benefits city-wide for low and moderate
income neighborhoods." Motley's pro-
posal was to contribute 20 percent of a
amenity contribution" to
a "City-wide Planning and Development
Fund" to ameliorate the effects of in-
direct displacement. She was joined in
dissent by two other commissioners who
argued for similar "inclusionary"
approaches.
During the past year, these ideas have
been a popular topic of discussion, even
before Lincoln West. The "inclusionary"
concept has been a main agenda item at
meetings of the N.Y.C. American Plan-
ners Association chapter, the Planners
Network, the New Yorkers for Equitable
Development coalition (NYFED), and a
number of local community boards and
neighborhood coalitions.
One proposal is for a general citywide
"housing trust fund." Other proposals
seek to regularize the system of developer
"give backs" and return a portion of the
development bonus to the community.
For example, Community Board #8 on
the upper east side recently passed a
resolution for the dedication of "half of a
$688,000 zoning bonus" from a 39-story
luxury high rise development to a sub-
sidized housing fund. The bonus resulted
from a $I5-per-square foot formula for
46,000 extra square feet allowed under
the City's "Housing Quality" program.
Other communities are discussing the
feasibility of sJ>ecial anti-displacement
zoning districts.
Question and Study
Many issues are waiting to be resolved.
Should an inclusionary zoning policy be
implemented citywide or restricted to cer-
tain districts within the city? How much
of the value created by zoning should re-
main in the immediate neighborhood of
the development? Is a citywide fund
preferable to actual unit setasides? If a
fund is set up, who will administer it, and
to whose benefit? Does it make sense to
"cede" certain parts of the city to gentri-
fication for the purpose of creating low
income housing elsewhere? How impor-
tant are economic and racial integration?
Are there any constitutional issues of
"taking" of private property at stake?
The Metropolitan Action Institute, a
public interest group with a background
in many of the suburban exclusionary
zoning struggles of the past decade, is
now beginning a grass roots effort to
identify inclusionary zoning models that
make sense for New York City's diverse
neighborhoods. This project has received
initial funding from the New York Com-
munity Trust. We plan to work closely
with NYFED (New Yorkers for Equitable
Development), other citywide groups,
city officials, and local community
organizations. The work will result, first,
in a citywide conference and then in a pro-
17
gram to implement a series of concrete
zoning policy proposals. These amend-
ments can be used to harness the strength
and profitability of the real estate market
to benefit, rather than exclude, the low in-
come people of this city. Inclusionary
zoning is a public policy whose time has
come. We are one of many organizations
seeking to make it a reality. Unless we all
work together now, there will soon be no
one left to "include." 0
Paul Davidoff is Executive Director of
the Metropolitan Action Institute,
formerly Suburban Action. Phil Tegeler
is directing the Institute's Inclusiono,"
Zoning Policy Project ----iw..j

' 'I'
I r , ' t l It i
I ,
----------------------Developrnent-----------------------
New York Partnership chairman, banker David
Rockefeller.
New York's 'Parlllenhlp' Prepares 10 BaUd
By Susan Baldwin
N
EW YORK CITY, TOGETHER WITH A CONSOR-
tium of its most powerful banks, corporations and trade
unions, is awaiting word on its request for a $52.5 million
federal grant to aid the construction of middle income single
family homes. The proposal calls for the New York City Part-
nership, headed by banker David Rockefeller, to construct
5,000 new homes on some two dozen city-owned sites.
Several of the proposed building sites have been the subject
of long community struggles, and earlier city pledges, to erect
low income housing.
The grant, which is the largest amount for housing ever re-
quested under the Urban Development Action Grant pro-
gram, would be used by the Partnership's housing develop-
ment arm to reduce the cost of the homes. But unlike another
federally subsidized small homeownership program, Section
235, which has been ended by the Reagan Administration, the
Partnership is aiming at higher income purchasers.
Income limits for the 2;000 homes under construction or still
planned in the city under the 235 program are $31,100 for a
family of four. The Partnership's plan suggests an average in-
come of $45,600 for the same size family, although by using
the federal grant it will slide the amounts downward (see box).
The "Nehemiah Plan" of the East Brooklyn Churches
organization calls for more modest incomes still for the 5,000
homes it hopes to construct, suggesting average incomes of
between $16,000 and $20,000.
"We are trying to serve a population that is not currently be-
ing served in New York City - anybody who earns less than
$50,000 and wants to own a house," said Cathy Wylde, ex-
ecutive vice president of the Housing Partnership. "We are
hoping to build houses for people out of the inventory of city-
owned land, most of which is in areas that require subsidies."
Partnership Praised By Reagan
Rockefeller's Partnership won high praise from President
Reagan last year for its youth employment prograrIlJ and has
applied its business-labor alliance in other areas of the city as
well including transit services. After surveying the city's ablest
administrators over the past few months, in January it selected
schools chancellor Frank Macchiarolla as its director.
a $25 million capital grant.
The 5,()()()..unit "New Homes Program" it proposes is part
of the Housing Partnership's announced commitment to build
a total of 30,000 middle income units, many of them at market
rates, throughout the five boroughs.
The program's overall projected cost is $375 million. The
$52.5 million UDAG is the essential ingredient for leveraging
$260 million in loans from other private and public sources.
The city's own contribution, in addition to the land, would be
In the city's application letter to Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Samuel Pierce, Mayor Koch said that a
portion of the UDAG monies would be recaptured by taking
up to 50 percent of the homes' appreciation over their original
price when they are resold. The application also called for the
establishment of a Housing Trust Fund "to serve as a perma-
nent endowment to support future housing needs of low and
moderate income families." 0
Where Partnership Would Build
The Partnership's plan ca1Is for 1,475 new homes
in Brooklyn, 479 in Manhattan, 553 in Staten Island,
1,994 in Quccns, and 691 in the Bronx. These '
numbers and sites may change substantially, how-
ever, as both local and federal negotiations continue.
Listed below are the proposed sites and numbers
of units listed in the city's UDAG application.
-Manbattan: Upper West Side and West
Harlem- Frederick Douglass Circle I between West
109th and I 10th Streets at Central Park West, 72
units; Frederick Douglass Circle Gateway to
Harlem, 39 units. Both are pan of the Cathedral
Parkway Urban Renewal Area and are designated as
Community Development and Section 8
Neighborhood Strategy Areas. The first site was on
the Board of Estimate' s priority list as an approved
site for 340 units of 100 percent low income, public
housing scheduled to begin construction in the Sum-
mer, 1972.
Lower East Side- Suffolk Street, south of Delancey
Street, East 8th and 9th and 4th and 5th Streets, bet-
ween Avenues C and 0, 368 units. The Suffolk Street
site, also known as Seward Park Urban Renewal
Area, was fITst designated for at least 100 units oflow
income family housing and finally set aside in the
Spring, 1980, for senior citizen and handicapped
housing and commercial revitalization as an "inter-
national" mall. The 4th and 5th Street site has com-
mitments from both New York City Housing
Authority and HPD. A federal subsidy set aside for
that housing is already in place.
-Brooklyn- Schermerhorn/Pacific Urban
Renewal Area in the Boreum Hill section, 168 units.
This cleared site, now a parking lot, marking years of
community turf wars, was to have included a hous-
ing plan accommodating some 27 percent low in-
come housing.
Windsor Te"ace, 30 units; Atlantic TcrmioaI, an
urban renewal site in the Ft. Green section, 168 units;
Coney Island Urban Renewal Area, 500 units, ad-
joining a current Section 235 development; Marcus
Garvey Urban Renewal Area, 500 units, the
Brownsville section which includes Section 235
development that is encountering difficult market
conditions; Holy Cross, East Flatbush, 50 units
belonging to the Catholic diocese, origioa1ly slated
for Section 235 housing; Crown Heights, in the area
between Albany and Troy Avenues and Crown and
Montgomery Streets, 75 units.
-Staten 1sIand- Narrows Road (Bus Garage), in
the Concord section, 135 units; Bloomingdale Road,
South Richmond section, 318 units; Canal Street, a
What Homes Would Cost
vacant site in Stapleton in the heart of an older
neighborhood undergoing substantial residential
and commercial revitalization, 100 units.
-Queens- South Conduit Boulevard and Christ
the Church site in the Springfield Gardens section,
110 units; Arverne Urban Renewal Area, 280 acres in
the Rockaways, 1,500 units; South Jamaica Urban
Renewal Area, 100 units, adjacent to a Section 235
project that has bcco delayed by slow market condi-
tions; Corona/East Elmhurst, 134 units in scattered
sites around Astoria and Northern Boulevard, East
Elmhurst Urban Renewal Area and the Corona Ur-
ban Renewal Area surrounding planned Section 2D2
elderly housing; and the proposed West Queens-
Astoria High School site, 150 units.
-Tbe Bronx- Tiffany/Fox Streets and Southern
Boulevard, 90 units, a "build-out" of the already
planned Section 235 housing; Longwood Avenue -
Stebbins Avenue and Hewitt Place, 107 units on va-
cant and abandoned sites adjacent to this 12-square-
block brownstone enclave; Story Avenue in the
Soundview section, 100 units; Pugsley/Randall
Avenues section, also in Sound view, 128 units;
P.S.34 - Morris ParklVan Nest Avenue, 16 units,
in the Pelham Parkway Neighborhood Preservation
area; and the famous, embattled Charlotte Street,
Crotona South section, 250 units. 0 S.B.
Development costs of a single home or condominium are additional capital budget expenditure of $10,000 from the
projected to be $75,000 each. The UDAG, if awarded, will city's $25 million pool, plus a maximum UDAG of$15,OOO,
be applied to reduce the purchase price Qf the home in the monthly cost of the home would still be $589_ In order to
amounts of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 depending upon meet these expenses, the family would need an annual in-
whether the home is in an area that can command a market come of $25_2424 to $28.273.0 S.B.
rate price. After the grant is used to reduce the price of the
house, up to 28 percent of family income is needed to cover
monthly payments of principal, interest, insurance and
taxes.
At the market rate in a strong real estate neighborhood
where no UDAG is offered, the home might sell for
$80,000. Following the income requirements schedule, a
family, in order to afford the calculated $882.43 monthly
charges for the new home, would have to earn between
$37,818 and $42,357.
In a marginal area, this same home would cost $75,000 ~
but might be selling for $70,000. The monthly cost to buy ,
this home, according to the Partnership's figures, would be
$784.63. Hence, this family, to afford this housing while
still qualifying for a $5,000 UDAG, would need to earn bet:
ween $33,627 and $37,662 annually.
In a below market rate area with the development cost re-
mruning at $75,000, the house might sell at $50,000. With an
19
CITY LiMITS/February 1983
Tenants Picket Landlord's Home ..ByRachelSanchez
O
N THE COLD SUNDAY MORN-
ing of December 19, tenants from
Chelsea, Clinton and Harlem travelled to
a luxurious suburban neighborhood in
New Jersey to picket the home of their
landlord, Mike Sohayegh. Their trip was
prompted by charges that Sohayegh often
fails to provide heat and hot water to the
low income residents in the tenement
apartments he manages and owns. He has
also been accused of emptying his
buildings through suspicious fires, the use
of violence and allowing junkies to live in
vacant apartments, and then selling the
properties to developers at market value.
Sohayegh's tenants arrived at 62
Synder Rd in Englewood Cliffs to find a
police car stationed on the opposite side
of the street. Housing Conservation
Coordinators, a non-profit tenant
organization that organized the picket,
notified the nearest police-station and ob-
tained authorization to demonstrate.
While tenants marched and chanted
slogans, two HCC organizers went
through the neighborhood distributing
fact sheets and a newspaper clipping to in-
form local residents about what their
neighbor was doing in Manhattan.
"Know Your Neighbor"
The fact sheet, entitled "Know Your
Neighbor," included an account of the
situation at 333 W. 16th St., where it said
Sohayegh brought in 13 goons with
plumbing wrenches and hammers and
told the tenants if they didn't move out
they would be bodily removed. The
literature mentioned 351 W. 47th St.,
which it said was completely occupied
when Sohayegh bought it three years ago,
but since has lost most tenants after two
suspicious fires and chronic heat and hot
water problems. The list went on to
describe neglect and tenant harassment in
14 other Sohayegh buildings.
Tenants at the demonstration said
Sohayegh's most recent target was 320 W.
47th St., a building with 10 units and nine
tenants. They said managing agent
Sohayegh had been telling tenants he was in
the process of getting an inspector to con-
demn the building and issue an order to
force the tenants out. They said the
building's fuel level had been kept low
under Sohayegh's management, and that
there was not always heat or hot water.
Residents added that, with the
assistance of HCC, 320 recently formed a
tenants association that has started a rent
strike in response to the lack of adequate
services. With the rent money they have
opened a bank account in the name of the
tenants association to finance building
repairs . Tenants said they plan to
challenge Sohayegh' s management of 320
in court.
Sohayegh's Response
As tenants angered by these situations
chanted "Mike Sohayegh is a slumlord,"
"We want heat,. not junkies," and "No
more arson," Sohayegh suddenly came
out of his house. Through the boos and
hisses, he walked across his lawn over to
the police car to determine if he could file
a harassment complaint against the
crowd for invading his privacy. "It's not
likely" responded the officer.
As tenants entered the bus to return to
Manhattan, Sohayegh stood in his front
window with a polaroid camera. If the
pictures have come out, despite the dark,
cloudy day, Sohayegh may attempt to use
them as evidence against the tenants. But
right now, HCC and tenants from several
of his buildings are in housing court at-
tempting to have Sohayegh arrested for
not providing heat and hot water. D
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T
HE AUCTION WAS GOING
strong in Saratoga, New York's
Fasig-Tipton Pavillion last August, when
the affluent audience of thoroughbred
horse buyers got a bid they hadn't ex-
pected. Four members of the Redistribute
America Movement, New York's state-
wide welfare rights organization, stood
and unfurled a six-foot banner that pro-
claimed "Stop Welfare For The Rich"
from the pavillion balcony. One of the
group made a short statement condemn-
ing the Reagan Administration-inspired
tax breaks that allow thoroughbred horse
buyers to write off half the animals' pur-
chase prices over the course of five years,
a policy enacted last year, while federal
cuts took over a billion dollars from the
nation's welfare budget. Then, during the
few moments remaining before Pinker-
ton security guards could reach them
through the crowd, the four protesters
sang, to the tune of "Camptown Races,"
the following verse:
"They call it tax deductions but it's
"Welfare, Welfare.
"They call it tax deductions but it's
"Welfare for the rich."
The action took place as part of a day-
long protest by RAM members, who also
picketed outside the horse auction and
held a rally in Saratoga's Congress Park.
It was one in a series of RAM demonstra-
tions designed to dramatize harsh con-
trasts between government policies
affecting the corporate rich and low in-
come families, particularly those receiv-
ing public assistance. This broad effort is
continuing, along with a more localized
"accountability campaign" begun by
members of the organization in New
York City's welfare centers several
months ago.
"We have a real need at this point to
confront the fraud arguments-that these
people are cheaters, that the poor are rip-
ping us off," one RAM member said of
the groups intentions. To that end, she
added, "we organize poor people around
.poor people's issues."
The accountability effort is an attempt
WeHare
Organizing
Shakes Up
the Comfortable
to turn the table or ::harges of fraud and
organize welfare clients on the most basic
issue - their income. "It's illegal for a
welfare worker not to give you what you
deserve according to the rules, but I've
never met anybody on welfare who didn't
have something illegal happen," stated
Marcy May of the Downtown Welfare
Advocate Center, an information and
training group affiliated with RAM.
New, more strict federal regulations af-
fecting eligibility and benefit levels have
made it even harder for welfare recipients
to assert their rights, May added.
To address these problems, groups of
RAM members numbering up to about
30 have visited city welfare centers every
other week since last fall. Once inside,
they have demonstrated to resolve speci-
fic client complaints. During alternate
weeks, the organization has conducted
training sessions on changing rules and
the bureaucratic process welfare families
21
must use to get the benefits to which they
are entitled.
The general areas which present the
most problems to clients, and which
therefore are the most important for
training purposes, RAM members note,
include: the welfare application process;
emergency situations; "recertification,"
the process through which welfare house-
holds must verify their eligibility and level
of assistance; case closings; and "fair
hearings," which can be demanded by
recipients who believe they have received
inadequate or unfair treatment.
"We teach people their rights, and how
to get them," said Anna Cruz, a RAM
volunteer from Manhattan's Chelsea
neighborhood. "After the training, peo-
ple separate into groups and work on
their own individual problems."
Demonstrations FoUow
To deal with problems that arise at
training sessions, or from calls received at
RAM's Union Square and downtown
Brooklyn offices, that can't be solved im-
mediately,
volunteers come into play. They frrst try
to deal with such situations by telephone,
dialing their way through the admin-
istrative "chain of command" at the
welfare center in question. But when this
course is unsuccessful, and the grievance
continues, demonstrations often follow.
Such actions have produced tangible
results. According to RAM, nine demon-
strations held during the accountability
campaign's first 18 weeks put enough
pressure on the bureaucracy to win neady
$8,000 in previously withheld legal
benefits for nine families.
And as the organization's efforts to en-
force current welfare regulations to their
full extent continues, so does its more am-
bitious attempt to attain corporate res-
ponsibility in the age of trickle-down
economics. If one element runs through
both parts of the RAM strategy, it is the
group's distinctive means of shaking up
the comfortable. As Anna Cruz put it:
"They hate it when we start singing in
their offices." D TIm Ledwith

Frank Potts of the South Bronx Survivor, Bero and Patriot
By Diane Adler and Melissa Goldsmith
"This patriot never under any cir-
cumstances boasts oj the largeness oj his
country, but always, and oj necessity oj
the smallness oj it. "
C.K. Chesterton
, FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS A
battle has been waged by the
residents of the South Bronx to prevent its
complete devastation. The heroes, the
new urban patriots that have emerged
during this struggle are not the urban
planners, the politicians or the city of-
ficials, but the individuals who have
decided to stay and defend their turf.
These true patriots did not start out at-
tempting to save an entire city. But in
fighting for their own small piece, they
have ultimately saved larger portions of
the South Bronx.
A single individual, on a single block in
the South Bronx has done more for a
community than millions of Federal
dollars in similar areas. Frank Potts of
928 Kelly St., is a survivor, a hero and a
patriot. This is revealed not in flag waving
or in political preferences but by the five
story walk-up on Kelly St. that Mr. Potts
has just completed rehabilitating. After
four years of work and over $100,000 of
his own money, the first tenants have
recently moved into apartments that are
better built and more spacious than most
new construction on Manhatta:l's Upper
East Side. The entire building has been
leased to the South Bronx Mental Health
Council Inc. to be used as a "community
residence" for outpatients. And, at
$10,000 per apartment, Mr. Potts' con-
struction costs are approximately $40,000
to $50,000 less than similar work done
through the Federal Section 8 Gut Rehab '
Program.
Four years may seem inordinately long
to rehab a 10 unit building, and one
building may seem insignificant when
there are over 77 ,000 dilapidated rental
Frank Potts
in front of 932
Kelly St . which he
. recently
finished rehabilitating.
units citywide, but Mr. Potts did not
receive a single government dime and his
one reluctant attempt to secure a bank
loan failed. "It took so long to finish the
work," Mr. Potts explains, "'cause I
didn't have the money. If I had had the
money, a building like that shouldn't take
me more than three months. But if you
don't have that money, you work a while
until you get it, then you spend that
money and wait around until you get
more." And there were no work crews to
help Mr. Potts replace the walls and roof,
no electricians to rewire the apartments
and install new appliances, and no
plumbers to put in new plumbing. The
new stairs, all the new kitchen cabinets
and the shining bathroom tiling were in-
stalled by Mr. Potts. Ninety-five percent
22
of the work is his.
Once a Sharecropper
Mr. Potts' hard work began long
before he came to 112th St. in Harlem _
his first home in NYC - with his wife
Nan, 2 children, and $19 in his pocket.
From the day his grandfather took him,
at age 12, to work on a cotton gin in his
hometown of Wei r, Mississippi where he
hauled 5-600 pound bales of by
himself to his job as a sharecropper where
he plowed fields for 50 per day, Mr.
Potts has always worked hard.
When he left Weir, Mr. Potts left not
only a job that he worked on from sun-up
to sundown, but he also left a way of life
that would take many years for him to
N.Y. "When I was corning up
as a kid in Mississippi, "Mr. Potts recalls,
"people had much more care for one
another. Today people don't have care
for no one no more. They don't even have
care for themselves. If my house would
get burned down, if my bam get burned
down, if I'm in trouble, people from all
around would come and build my house
back. And today, if my house, your
house, burn down, they won't even come
round the curb to help you. They used to
get in a horse and buggy to come miles to
help you. Today we modem times. Now
you go in a car for 5-10 minutes, you
there. But they don't do it no more."
Work in New York was no easier to .
fmd 30 years ago than it is now, but Mr.
Potts was able to land a part time job
demolishing buildings. Eventually, he
found steady employment as a factory die
cutter, where he worked for 22 years, 13
without a vacation.
By the time he was working steadily,
Mr. Potts had had four more children
and found that "landlords wouldn't rent
to anyone with six kids." So for $3000,
and with 3 mortgages (one for $300 that
had to be repaid in 90 days), he bought his
first building, 928 Kelly St. Mr. Potts
believes that had the woman who sold
A Spokesperson
To the Editor:
him the building thought he could pay for
it, she would not have sold him the
building. "She knew I didn't have any
money/' Mr. Potts explains, "and she
would have had that $3000. I'm a poor
loser and since I was making $75 to $80
per week I took a second job working
four to five nigbtsper week at the docks in
Hunts Point."
After making the flfst payment on the
house, Mr. Potts had 15 and one
token left. "Anything could have hap-
pened," Mr. Potts recalls. "It's sink or
swim. If you don't keep moving, New
York will eat you up - swallow you right
up so you have to fight for your life." So
he and his family "ate rice and beans and
beans and rice. We really sacrificed."
Eventually Mr. Potts purchased 6 more
buildings on Kelly St. He plans to begin
rehabilitation of 923 Kelly St. in the next
few months.
Banana-Kelly
Though Mr. Potts may not have pulled
anyone from a burning building, or saved
someone from. drowning, he has been
instrumental in saving one block, Kelly
St. and consequently has given life, spirit
and community to those living on it. The
Banana-Kelly Community Improvement
Association, founded by Mr. Potts' son
Leon and Harry DiRienzo, located on
Kelly St., is not only one of the most suc-
cessful community organizations in New
York, but is also a place where people are
close. According to Mr. Potts, "They
seem to care for one another. We seem
like a family. Even if they're not related,
they're Potts. I don't care what color.
Color don't mean nothing to me."
The residents of Kelly St. have created
a community garden, sponsored block
parties and clean-ups, and have
rehabilitated three buildings and dozens
of lives. The perserverance and work of
Mr. Potts has shown these people that a
neighborhood is more than lines on a
planner's map. It's people who care for
each other.
"What we done today in the South
Bronx," Mr. Potts boasts, "We're bring-
ing it back. Like sweat equity - people
get out there and they work for nothing.
Just try to build it up. Like it was in
Mississippi. " 0
Diane Adler works for HPD's Dept. of
Alternative Management.
Melissa Goldsmith is a free lance film
producer.
Lead Poison Action Kit
To the Editor:
I recently renewed my subscription, and I want to take a mo-
ment to congratulate you on how you have developed City
Limits into a magazine of and about New York City including
all its boroughs and their neighborhoods and their concerns,
While still, I think, maintaining its original base and purpose as
a spokesperson for the city's housing and community move-
ment. Well done!
I was very interested to see your article on lead poisoning
problems in the Bronx ["No Refuge in the Bronx," December
1982]. Lead poisoning is still a terrible problem, and needs the
kind of publicity you are giving it. Good article!
Consumers Union Foundation has a longstanding interest in
this problem as well, and in fact last year sponsored a con-
ference on lead hazards. Just a few weeks ago, we completed
an "Action Kit" on lead hazards, which 1 have taken the liber-
ty of enclosing,. Perhaps you may want to refer people to some
of these materials if you get inquiries from your articles. Peo-
ple can order the packet from us for $2, but please also feel free
to copy any portion of it and distribute it yourself.
Joel Gallob
Eleventh Street
Brooklyn
Jean M. Halloran Consumer Policy Research
Director, Institute for Mount Vernon, N.Y.
23

By Richard Schraeder
E
VERY SEGMENT OF THE HOUS-
'ng market has suffered cash flow
and operational difficulties since the
beginning of the energy crisis. Older
buildings have experienced expensive and
major heat loss problems. Of the struc-
tures built before 1939, nationally, one-
third have no ceiling insulation, and 42
percent have no wall insulation. In 1980,
some 268,000 rental units had heating
system breakdowns, while 123,000 owner-
occupied systems experienced the same.
What can be done?
A recent study by the Lawrence Berke-
Iy Laboratory at the University of
California, placed hard numbers on an
often soft philosophic framework. The
study showed that a conservation invest-
ment of $1 ,000 will, on average, reduce a
house's space heating consumption by 25
percent, while a $2,000 investment will
curtail usage by more than 40 percent.
Yet most low income tenant
cooperatives or homeowners are bound
by financial constraints from engaging in
medium or large scale conservation in-
vestment. The lack of inexpensive capital
has produced a financing deadlock. The
need to loosen a readily accessible pool of
resources is paramount if conservation is
to be a serious response to increased fuel
costs. The largest potential loan source,
New York's banking community, has
resisted expanding the stream of available
loans for energy efficiency. To banks,
energy savings will not sufficiently
enhanet: a borrower' s prospects. The
criterion is too speculative for financial
institutions who perceive such loans as
disruptive and costly. Overall, consumer
VIOilies
Could
Provide
EDergy
tt PJ;.t;;.
loans account for only about 2 percent of
loans, since bankers tend to lose money
due to the costs of originating and servic-
ing the transaction coupled with a high in-
cidence of default. At three- to five-year
repayment schedules, plus the current rise
in interest rates (as inflation declines),
bank loans appear as an unattractive tool
to most consumers.
There is another source, even less utiliz-
ed. In New York, utilities are permitted to
provide energy audits, loans and potential
subcontracts for work through the
state's Home Insulation Energy Conser-
24
vation Act (HIECA). HIECA is the local
version of the national Residential Con-
servation Service program. There is a sim-
ple logic behind utility involvement in the
financing of energy efficiency in-
vestments. Utilities can provide "one-
step" conservation service and have im-
mediate access to customers. Still, in New
York and the rest of the Northeast,
utilities have been reluctant to sponsor
either conservation loan programs or a
fully financed audit plan.
Much of the difficulty seems to come
from the traditional role of the power
company. Utilities are loathe to become
involved with financing issues, preferring
to leave that area to banks and the fman-
cial community. Energy conservation
may also be perceived as an unwarranted
,hift in the utility'S overall objectives.
. Also, utilities that currently have
mbstantially excessive generating capaci-
even though new capacity may be
leeded in the future, find it hard to justify
:ngaging in conservation financing ac-
ivities while a large portion of their plant
'emains idle. Currently, utilities in New
rork State have excess capacity on the
)rder of 30 to 40 percent. Power com-
)any executives have also expressed con-
cern that their lending might lead to
charges of unfair competition with the
traditional activities of banks and savings
and loan institutions. They also point to
their own persistent capital shortages.
High debt costs and escalating costs in
maintenance operation and construction
frequently erode a sizable portion of a
utility rate increase.
The utilities prefer guarantees to direct
loans. Since there is no immediate cash
payment by the utility, the company's li-
quid assets are not reduced, and the credit
decision is made by the bank, not the
power company. Still, only some 500
loans have been made by Consolidated
Edison since 1977. Concerned local
organizing by homeowners, landlords
and tenant co-ops might begin to increase
the market for such loans.
Since energy conservation represents
an important community need, local len-
ding institutions should be held accoun-
table for meeting this need. A political
strategy ought to be designed to match the
economic desires . A community
organization needs to show local banks
how conservation investments stabilize
property values and slow housing
deterioration and abandonment. Com-
munity groups that have organized
against bank redlining and are familiar
with the Community Reinvestment Act,
have already acquired organizing ex-
perience around banking policy. Similar
strategies should be pursued, emphasiz-
ing the bank's dependence on community
resources and the widespread need for
energy efficiency investments.
In policy terms, a modest proposal
ought to begin with extending HIECA to
cover tenant co-ops and multi-family
buildings. Such an amendment has
languished in the state Senate Energy
Committee for the last three sessions. But
on a broader level, community groups
must seek citywide, jointly owned pools
of low-cost capital.
The resources for that capital are the
same institutions that have benefitted
from city life at a cost of perpetual
economic suffering for residents. If com-
munities are to seek empowerment, deci-
sion sharing and planning ought to begin
with those institutions. 0
Richard Schraeder is a regular con-
tributor on energy issues to City Limits
and hosts the program "Power Politics"
on WBAI-FM. I
l i I ' I I I I I I I I I ~ : ________________________________________ __
LOWBB BAST SlDB
rvlmING
IS IIIVESTIGAUD
Attorneys for the Human Resources
Administration have ruled that the Com-
munity Development Agency acted in an
"arbitrary and capricious" manner in im-
plementing its funding process of
neighborhood groups. The ruling came
after a Lower East Side group, Cooper
Square Community Development Com-
mittee, objected to the basis of CDA's
denial of its own application as well as its
approval of other neighborhood con-
tracts. Although the decision came in
mid-November, it was not released to
Cooper Square until mid-January, 1983.
(The Defunding of Cooper Square," Oct.
1982).
The HRA attorneys said that CDA
"had failed to investigate in a responsible
or thorough manner the composition and
balance of various boards of directors to
which it allotted funding."
According to Val Orselli, director of
the Cooper Square group which is located
on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the
agency plans to conduct the investigation
of those boards whose membership is in
question and issue standards of review.
The results of this investigation are to be
turned over to CDA's policy analysis and
development unit for further action by
Feb. 15.
In the interim, CDA will continue to
fund those agencies whose contracts are
already in place. If they are found tobe
ineligible after the in.vestigation, they
reportedly will be defunded.
Although it received a high rating on .
the grant application, Cooper Square was
rejected for funding in August, 1982.
Following the CDA rule book, Cooper
Square appealed this decision, charging
that CDA had failed to abide by its own
rules.
The lawyers' decision to investigate
certain groups mentioned some of the
same irregularities cited by Cooper
Square in its appeal, including assigning
grades to questions left blank on the en-
trance application, duplication of board
representation and materials, and failure
to certify that the board qualifying for a
grant has a majority of poor members on
its board.
The boards of two groups with some
overlapping directorship, the Association
of Community Service Centers, Inc., and
the Puerto Rican Council (EI Concilio)
Multi-Service Center #6, are being ex-
amined for duplication. They received the
lowest CDA ratings but were awarded
$146,988 and $115,121, respectively, two
of the largest grants in the agency's total
$863,900 allocation to 13 Lower East Side
groups.
Two other groups - The United
Jewish Council and the Chinese
Methodist Committee - are being in-
vestigated for creating special sub-boards
of poverty candidates to meet the condi-
tions of the CDA contract that mandate
that the boards must be 50 percent poor
plus one. These organizations' main
boards do ,not meet the CDA anti-poverty
requirements. O S.B.
25
GBANTSFOB
MODBL SBO's
The state Department of Housing and
Community Renewal has awarded grants
totaling $710,000 to three groups involv-
ed in remodeling Single Room Occupan-
cy housing and running it as model
facilities in the community. (' 'Funds for a
Livable SRO, April, 1982.)
DHCR has a total of $4 million in this
Special Needs budget. Of this amount, $2
million has been set aside for a matching
grant progam involving the city's Depart-
ment of Housing Preservation and
Development. Under the latter, the city
donates the building and the land to this
special project.
Receiving $301,000 from the nonprofit
budget is the Franciscan Order that runs
the St. Francis Residence at East 24th
Street and Lexington Avenue. They plan
to use this grant to rehabilitate a
l00-room SRO, known as the Stanford
Hotel, at 155 West 22nd Street.
Participating in the city's matching
program are the 300-Block West 139th
Street Block Association which will use
$109,000 in state funds to fix up and run
two small brownstones as SROs on the
block.
The other grant in the city's matching
program - $300,000 - goes to the
Washington Heights/ West Harlem/ In-
wood Coalition for the Hudson Hotel at
1649 Amsterdam Avenue in West
Harlem, an SRO that has been in several
of the city' s tax-foreclosed programs for a
number of years. 0 S.B.
The Haunted Apartment Cases
The West Side Tenants' Union is ac-
tively campaigning to root out a ghostly
breed of "supertenants." These fictitious
"prime" tenants snap up apartments and
then sublet them at a profit, writes Judy
Elster in the Tenants' Union paper, Ad-
vance. They are also often in cahoots with
the landlord, and may be totally invented.
Those "supertenants" working this
scam on their own make out just fme, but
the landlord's benefits are even broader:
The subtenant who rents from this
"supertenant" is deprived of all rights
under the Rent Stabilization Law; the
phoney "prime" tenants can vote for an
eviction co-op plan; if co-oping is achiev-
ed, only the "prime" tenants can buy at
the reduced insider's rate. Finally,
subtenants live in fear and trembling of
losing their home and probably won't
complain about overcharging.
landlord and a broker were arrested and
charged with defrauding more than 13
subtenants via these ghosts. They could
face up to 13 years in prison.
WSTU cautions legitimate subtenants
not to challenge before the CAB which
has a huge backlog of these complaints,
but offers these tell-tale signs to be alert
for:
1) A subtenant paying directly to the
building manager or the landlord's
address.
2) A broker's insistence on signing a '.
statement declaring your apartment is
a secondary residence even though it
is not.
3) Inability to get access to the apart-
ment's previous rent history.
4) The prime tenant has never been met
and can't be reached.
5) A long-term sublease such as two
years.
L-______________ ~
6) Lots of similar subleasing in the
building.
7) The next door neighbors, who have
lived there for 20 years, say the
"prime" tenant neve.r lived in the
apartment. 0
This article is adapted from a longer arti-
cle in WSTUIAdvance, Fall, 1982.
~
~
:...
'"
~
Recent action by tenants and enforce-
ment agencies are getting this issue into
the o ~ n . One West Side Tenants' Union
member, Edward Finelt, challenged the
practice and won the status of prime ten-
ant in his apartment. Finelt discovered the
subterfuge after he was instructed to send
his rent to the managing agent, not the
"prime" tenant whom he had never met
and could not reach. The rent history he
got from the owner also didn't jibe with
what neighbors told him. After con-
sulting with WSTU, Finelt filed a com-
plaint with the Conciliation and Appeals
board. Sixteen months later the board
found Ideco Ltd. in violation of Sec. 62A
of the Rent Stabilization Law which bars
" illusory tenancy." Finelt obtained his
full rights as well as a $100 per month
rollback in rent.
Getting Your Apartment's Rent History
Another Westsider, Earlene Williams
of 207 W. l06th St., had her rent reduced
from $1,150 per month to the fair market
value of $642.56. Her landlord, Omega
Mgmt., also had to pay back all previous
overcharges.
Recently, Manhattan District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau said that an East Side
For years, tenants in the 875,000 apart-
ments covered by New York City's rent
stabilization system have been frustrated
in their attempts to have rent guidelines
enforced. Now, through a procedure
adopted last August, they may have an
easier time doing so.
Tenant advocates have long contended
that one of rent stabilization's major
weaknesses, aside from the seemingly ar-
bitrary annual rent increases it allows, is
the unavailability of rent histories upon
which to base increased rents. For tenants
signing leases in new apartments, that
weakness has made it virtually impossible
to determine whether they are being over-
charged. While ' rent histories are
technically supposed to be attached to all
rent stabilized leases, in practice this is
never the case.
The new procedure addresses this point
directly. It says that tenants desiring rent
histories should call or write the Concilia-
26
tion and Appeals Board, the stabilization
system's enforcement arm, and ask for
the agency's "Gray Form." Once that's
filed, under the new procedure, the CAB
should require landlords to come up with
a full history of past rents within 30 days.
Landlords who don't meet that
deadline will be compelled to produce a
full rent roll for the entire building in
question. If this indicates there is a rent
overcharge, the CAB should calculate a
new rent for the apartment.
Under the new rule, landlords who
don't cooperate with the CAB can be ex-
pelled from stabilization and have their
apartments placed under the more strict
rent control system. 0
#
The CAB can be reached by calling
265-9920 or writing to 10 Columbus Cir-
cle, New York 10019.
-
---------------------------------
BUDGET ACTION BRIEFING: The
Fair Budget Action Campaign will hold a
three-day briefing on March 6-8 at the
University of the District of Columbia in
Washington, D.C. Last year, in its first
conference, the group drew over 550 ac-
tivists from 45 states involved in many ad-
vocacy organizations. This year's con-
ference will serve as a briefmg on budget
issues before Congress, and will focus on
the interrelationship between military
spending, taxes and social services fun-
ding policies. In addition to speakers,
workshops and discussions, the group has
put aside a half-day to lobby Congress
members. The cost of the budget briefing
is $30 per person. Responses must be sent
by February 16 to: Bill Kamela, National
Urban Coalition, 1201 Connecticut
Avenue, N.W., Wash. D.C. 20006. For
information, call: (202)332-2100 ext.
29.0
Lead Paint Testing: The city Health
Department is now pUblicizing a special
number to find out how and where to
have children tested for lead paint poison-
ing. The number is 334-7893.0
Tribute to Bob Schur: On Sunday, March
13, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., at Campbell
Hall, Sacred Heart Church (Basement
Entrance), 457 West 51st St. Manhattan,
between 9th and 10th Avenues. $7.50 per
person; R.S.V.P. no later than March 1.
Send to: Neighborhood Housing Friends
of Bob Schur, c/o ANHD, 424 W. 33rd
St., New York, N.Y. 10001.0
Hearings on Housing Opportunities for
Families with Children: The City Com-
mission on Human Rights is planning
hearings focusing on the scarcity of hous-
ing for families with children. Concrete
information on the phenomena which
have restricted housing opportunites for
families, as well as proposals for new
legislation and housing approaches are
sought. If you have information which
you feel the Commission should consider,
call Harvey Fisher at 233-4410. 0
"Dollars and Dictators": A free slide
presentation is available to New York
community organizatjons on U.S.
military and corporate involvement in
Central America. The show is 30 minutes
long and is presented by Columbia-
Barnard CISPES (Committee in Soli-
darity with the People of EI Salvador).
Call 781-4040, evenings. 0
People's Switchboard: A free telephone
referral service now offers New Yorkers a
convenient, central source of information
on community organizations of every
type. Has over 2,000 organizations on ftle
covering virtually every area of communi-
ty service, from daycare to tenants'
assistance, legal help to consumer protec-
tion. The Switchboard's number is
(212)505-6200, from Mon. to Fri., noon
t04p.m.0
Bronx Neighborhood Conference: Sun-
day, April 17th, the Fifth Bronx
Neighborhood Conference will be held
from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Herbert H.
Lehman College. Sponsored and con-
vened by over 40 organizations, the Con-
ference has traditionally provided a
forum where Bronx people celebrate their
successes. This year's theme is
"Building Bridges for the Future: Issues
for Community Leaders. For further
details, 654-6902. 0
IS YOUR INSURANCE
TOO EXPENSIVE?
Let us evaluate your insurance
program to see if you are getting the
most for your dollars.
"Specializing in IYon'Profit and
Community Organizations"
Contact: Paul Sourifman
(212) 684-4770
typesetting, design
layout and camera work
Advance
Graphic & Printing Services
(212) 852-7142
58 Third Ave. Brooklyn
27
Creallag COIIIIII ..... ty "ad TnuIs
How to Hold on to the Land
THE COMMUNITY LAND TRUST
HANDBOOK. Prepared by the Institute
jor Community Economics, and publish-
ed by the Institute, 151 Montague City
Road, Greenfield, MA 01301. 230 pages.
Paperback, $9.95; hardback, $14.95.
hr A I I ~ ( I I / Calrll'mn
Perhaps no issue other than housing
touches upon the sensitivity of Americans
today as does the acquisition of land;
from the rural farmer displaced by
speculators who convert the land into
holiday resorts to the city resident faced
with increasing high rents and the threat
of condo and coop conversion, the
ownership and control of land is the com-
mon denominator in their daily lives and
communities.
A recently published book, "The
Community Land Trust Handbook," by
the Institute of Community Economics,
makes a strong and convincing argument
for the community ownership of land:
" Today much has changed. There is no
longer a vast reserve of land waiting for
settlement. Americans can no longer pull
up roots, turn their backs on old pro-
blems, and make a new start on the fron-
tier . .. and at the heart of many of these
problems is the fact that an increasingly
large number of Americans are being
denied access to land and the economic
and social benefits of land."
The solution to this dilemma, as the
authors see it, is the development of the
community land trust, organized and
created to hold land for the benefit of a
community and individuals within it.
They explain that such a trust is a
democratically structured, non-profit
corporation, with an open membership
and board of trustees elected by the
membership. Acquisition for the land
trust is made through a purchase or dona-
tion intended to remove land from the
speculative market. Lifetime or long-term
leases are ' offered to individuals in the
community and may be transfered to the
leaseholders' heirs.
"Handbook" is divided into three
parts: a historical prospective of land
tenure problems and the Community
Land Trust; case studies and detailed ac-
counts of the community land trust in
various cities across the country; and a
practical guide to the Community Land
Trust, with a mix of research and organiz-
ing techniques.
The Handbook describes a number of
localities which have attempted to adopt
the community land trust model-from
Washington, D.C. where the Columbia
Heights Community Ownership Project
was founded, to the Community Land
Cooperative of Cincinnati, the Ottau-
quechee Regional Land Trust in Ver-
mont, and the Marin Agricultural Land
Trust in Marin County, California. Each
of these have bet:n attempts at " keeping
local land in productive use for the con-
tinued good of local people."
So far ,land trusts have mostly been im-
plemented in rural areas. But it also has
urban applications. The Cedar Riverside
Community Land Trust in Minneapolis is
holding on to land that urban renewal
threatened to make unaffordable to all
but those of upper-middle income. For
several years, New York City activists and
28
planners have discussed where and how a
land trust could work in neighborhoods
here. The Handbook helps stimulate
those ideas and is full of suggestions on
initial steps to take.
Given the problems of displacement
facing rural America and our inner cities,
the book is a timely guide to a complex
problem. For, as the authors state: "The
problems do not spring from the land
itself. They spring from the ways that the
land is controlled, owned, and used".
This is a "how-to" book not in the
genre of the quick profit bestsellers which
saturate the market. Instead it offers
another approach to the understanding of
the problem of displacement and land
ownership, and offers a possible
workable solution to a fragmented part of
the mosaic of the American dream-the
idea of a secure place where one can enjoy
the fruits of one's own labor.
This book is a must for the bookshelves
of community organizers, students of
land-use planning, and anyone concerned
with the problems of land use. O
A/ban Calderon is an organizer with the
New York Neighborhood Anti-Arson
Center.
EDITORIAL Continued From page 3
current tenant-cooperators wanted the option of restricting the ' resale
price on their apartments to allow only a minimal but necessary incentive
for tenants to make badly needed capital improvements which the City
had not been willing to underwrite. The Mayor, on the other hand, wanted
the apartments to be resold at the maximum price the market would bear,
taking a 40% cut off the top for the City's general treasury. This issue
should have been and could have been resolved by negotiation between
reasonable parties. But not while Mr. Koch is Mayor. His office declined to
sit down and talk, and the level of verbal warfare and ad hominem argu-
ment immediately escalated to the point where ego and not equity deter-
mined the City' s final decision.
In this case, as in many others (including those cited by the Mayor),
neighborhood advocates have taken strong positions on behalf of their
constituencies. This is their job. It is a difficult one, but many are quite
good at it after years of hard-earned experience. Furthermore, in our
political and economic system, this is a role with a long and sometimes
distinguished tradition. That Mayor Koch resents political advocacy and
attacks the diversity of interests and opinion from which it springs is not
surprising. H is is a egotistical style of leadership in which there is no room
for dissent. It makes one shudder to hear our nation's motto distorted to
serve his narrow political version: liE Pluribus Unum" - OR ELSE? O
JOBS WITH PEACE RESOLUTION
A resolution calling for the City Coun-
cil to endorse a "Jobs With Peace" cam-
paign has been introduced by Manhattan
Councilman-at-Large Edward Wallace.
The measure calls for the city to support a
week from April 10 to 16 which would be
"Jobs With Peace Week." During that
time, public ' education about the
economic impact of military spending
will be carried out and support gathered
for changes in Federal budget priorities.
For information on the campaign, or to
endorse the resolution, call Carol Stein-
sapir at 566-1323. 0
LANDLORD SUES
A lower East Side landlord has fIled a
$4 million lawsuit against a local
neighborhood organization and its direc-
tor for conspiracy and trespassing. Floyd
Feldman, the ' director of Good Old
Lower East Side, Inc., a neighborhood
preservation group, said that the suit was
landlord Clara C. Storper's response to
his support of tenants who have waged a
three-year rent strike against her at 438 E.
7th Street near Sec<,md Avenue. 0

.:'.:\:: ...... .
.... .. : ' ,. .. ',
Think how much cheaper it would be
if all the people, like yourself,
got together and bought oil by the mi!IiOnS of gallons
Well, it's already happening.
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BUY FUEL CHEAPLY, AND RELIABLY
We have been serving over 200 bUlldmgs for three years
NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS OR FEES
Call 239-9410 for latest prices for #2, #4 and #6 oil
ANHD
THE ASSOCIATION OF
NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING DEVELOPERS
424 West 33rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10001
29
TENANT BE COMMUNITY
ORGANIZER
To do community outreach, tenant organizing and
counseling, work with tenants in 7A buildings, and
assist Arson specialist with housing problems. Spanish
speaking helpful. Salary: $12,000 plus benefits.
Send resume or call: Sandra Abramson, St. Nicholas
N.P. 8 H.B. Corp., 11-29 Catherine Street, Brooklyn,
N.Y. 11211. 388-5454.
Community Organizer
Experience (paid or non-paid) with community-based
group, good verbal skills, flexible hours.
Bi-lingual preferred. Salary: $14,500 plus benefits.
Send resume or call Pat Conway,
Fifth Avenue Committee,
94 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn 11217
(6221900).
MAINTENANCE
RENOVATION SUPERVISOR
Small Re-Hab Project requires energetic, self-starter to
supervise maintenance work crews and contractors.
Requirements: 1. Strong architectural and field ex-
periences in construction management. 2. Strong
background and experiences in rehab planning, con-
struction techniques and materials, and contracting
. procedures. 3. Some experience in working with com-
munity based housing organizations.
Duties: Field supervision of on-going moderate multi-
family rehab; contract bidding and monitoring; cost
estimating; assist the Director/Assistant Director in the
overall maintenance and rehab planning.
Salary: Up To: Mid-Twenties.
Contact: D. Manning,
Community Management Director
Community League
Management Company
2005 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10032
Phone: 212/795-4779
ADMINISTRATIVE
ASSISTANT
NYC Regional Office of NCCB seeks experienced ad-
ministrative assistant/office manager. Must have flex-
ibility and ability to work with wide variety of people
and tasks, as well as good analytical capability. Good
writing skills essential. Bookkeeping experience prefer-
red. Salary range: $14-17,000 commensurate with ex-
perience. Excellent benefits. Send resume, including
salary history, to National Consumer Cooperative
Bank, 90 Church Street (Room 801B), New York, New
York 10007. EOE.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
RESPONSIBIUTIES. Overseeing office operations of non-
profit citywide housing organization. Establishing and main-
taining systems for smooth flow of communica-
tions/record keeping. Supervising secretarial staff of 2.
Overseeing personnel records, office supply inventory,
equipment maintenonce and vendors. Taking minutes of
organizational meetings. Doing secretarial work as
needed.
QUAUFICATIONS. Self-starting, highly organized person.
Office skills and experience. Able to function effectively
doing a wide variety of tasks in a hectic, exciting office. Ex-
perience in working with community groups and Spanish a
plus.
SALARY. $16-18,000 with benefits.
No calls. Send resumes to Executive Director,
Association 0' Neighborhood Housing Developers,
424 W. 33 St., NY 10001. Equal Opportunity Employer.
Weatherization Coordinator
Immediate opening. Coordinate all activities of low income
weatherization program. Determine building selection,
workscopes, budgets and schedules. Bid and contract for energy
audits and construction, including repairs and efficient retrofits of
windows and heating systems. Supervise staff, tenant certification,
contractors, contract and regulation compliance and reporting.
Negotiate with building owners and handle public relations.
Related experience required. Bilingual Spanish/ English a plus.
Resumes to Barbara Lowry, Northern Manhattan Improvement
Corporation, 601 West 181st St., New York, N.Y. 10022.568-9166.
MASTER'S DEGREE IN ,URBAN AFFAIRS
with concentration in
NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT
I
;
A 36 credit graduate program that can be
completed full-time in one year or part-time.
Courses Include:
Urban Development Workshop
Community-Based Management
Structure of the Urban Community
FieldWork
Present tuition for 15 credit semester $'863
plus fee for NYS residents. Financial aid. Grad-
uates don't necessarily get rich, but many are
plugged into vital community work such as
neighborhood and economic development spe-
cialists, District Managers, community rela-
tions and citizen participation organizers.
For In.onnallon contact Hans B.C. Spiegel,
Director, Graduate Program in Urban Affairs,
Hunter College, CUNY, 790 Madison Avenue,
New York, N.V. 10021. 570-5594.
To Our Readen
Please let us know when you move. Too
often, the Post Office informs us that it
cannot deliver your copy of City Limits
because you have moved and left no for-
warding address. Help us make sure you
don't miss a single issue.
The Editors
1:1 4 free
_ Try a free four-week subscript'ion
to the Guardian, North America's
largest independent radical
newsweekly, at absolutely no
obligation, Twenty-four pages of
non-sectarian coverage of the
issues and the movement every
week: the information you need .
about your own fight and the
common struggle,
Send your name and address to:
The Guardian, Dept.
33 We.t 17th Street
New York, N.Y. 10011
Free Insurance Appraisal
Richards and Fenniman, Inc., specialists in insuring tenant and community
groups for over 10 years, is offering to the readers of City Limits a free insurance
appraisal of their building.
We know your needs, your requirements, and how to help you get insurance
financing. And most important, we can get you the best prices.
For a free insurance appraisal of your building and an evaluation of your current
insurance program call me:
Ingrid Kaminski, Account Executive, (212) 267-8080.
Richards and Fenniman, Inc.
156 William Street, New York, New York 10038
31 CITY LIMITS/February 1983
City Limits has news about New York's
neighborhoods you 00I1't find anywhere else.
Tenants'Tactics Community Profiles Future Sketches
City Lemons Legal Briefs Opinion Review Follow-Up
Organize! People's Art This Month: Resources/Events
People Short Term Notes Letters Editorial Workshop

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