City Limits Magazine, May 1986 Issue

CITY LIMITS
2 CITY LIMITS May 1986

CITYUMITS
Volume XI Number 5
City Limits is published ten times per year.
monthly except double issues in JunelJuly and
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Association for Neighborhood end Housing
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ment groups. developing and advocating pro-
grams for low and moderate income housing
and neighborhood stabilization.
Pratt Institute Center for Community and
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assistance and advocacy office offering profes-
sional planning and architectural services to
low and moderate income community groups.
The Center also analyzes and monitors gOllern-
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.
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FROM THE EDITOR
Assessing Rent Regulations
The heavy artillery is out and the lords of the land are mercilessly
battering away once again at New York's rent regulations. This time the
campaign coincides with revisions to the state rent code being formu-
lated by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal- the first
changes in 14 years. In public forums and private discussions, rent
controls are called anathema to housing production and a cause of the
housing crunch itself. How times change. Used to be rent controls were
merely a Communist plot.
An outmoded system or vital tenant protections? In this issue, City
Limits evaluates rent regulation and the state agency in charge of it.
Rent regulation is neither a panecea for houtoing woes nor the destructive
force its detractors would have us believe, says NYU economist Michael
Mandel in, ''A Real Look at Rent Control."
The real story behind rent regulations may be the political wheeling
and dealing that's shaping them and Gov. Cuomo's jetisoning -of his
former yro-tenant posture. In "Cuomo to Weaken Tenant Protections?",
Michae McKee of the New York State Tenant and Neighborhood Coali-
tion runs down the past year's politicking on tenant issues.
Since 1984, the state is the rent regulator and a pretty poor one at
that says William Rowen in his assessment of the agencies administering
rent laws. He also gives some advice on navigating the system in "State
Rates ' F' as Rent Regulator."O
-.. - ......... ,'-"_ .
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INSIDE
FEATURES
A Real Look at Rent Control 10
Despite charges that rent regulations lead to aban-
donment of buildings and make it unprofitable to
be a landlord, there's little evidence to support these
claims.
Campaign Contributions the Key for ClintQn
Developers 16
A community's plan for its Own revitalization
clashed with the desires of some of the city's biggest
developers. The fracas enriched the campaign cof-
fers of several Board of Estimate members.
DEPARTMENTS
Editorials
Assessing Rent Control ........ .. ... . ... 2
Neighborhood Newsstand ...... ... ..... . ... 4
Letters .................................. 4
Short Term Notes
Brooklyn Housing Study ........ .. .. .. .. 6
Affordable Housing Gap ........ ..... ... 6
Power for the People . ..... . .... .. .. .. .. 6
Rent Code Hearings . ........ ..... ...... 7
Developers Go On-line .. ................ 7
Neighborhood Notes
Bronx ............ ............ . ...... 8
Brooklyn ..... . .. . . .................. . 8
Manhattan ............................ 9
Queens .............................. 9
Building Blocks
Maintenance and Repair of Roofs ... .. ... 10
Pipeline
Forging Leaders for Community Growth .. 20
City Views
Cuomo To Weaken Tenant Protection? .... 22
State Rates "F" as Rent Regulator ........ 25
Reviews
The Right Way to Write a Community History. 28
Resources/Events ......................... 30
Workshop . .............................. 31
May 1986 CITY LIMITS 3
Cuomo/Page 22
NEIGHBORHOOD NEWSSTAND
There They Go Againl
AS THE MOST CASUAL FOLLOW-
er of landlord propaganda knows,
rent regulation is the main cause of
arson, displacement, homelessness,
transit troubles and most other un-
pleasant urban phenomena.
Recent ads by the landlord's Rent
Stabilization Association portray a
young famil y and an older couple,
both white and relatively prosperous-
looking. The family, native New Yor-
kers as it turns out, are pictured below
a headline that reads , "We can't afford
to live here. " Seems they can't find
two- bedroom apartments in their
price range. They can't even get a foot
in the door. And somewhere along
the way in their fruitless search they
must have come across a disinforma-
tion specialist from the RSA, because
then they start telling tales. "You
know what we found out?" the ad
continues, "According to the city's
own study, there are over 900,000
apartments here renting for less than
$300 a month. But you'll never see
them on the market, thanks to rent
regulation laws. That's why we're
moving someplace else to raise our
family."
You might think lifelong New Yor-
kers giving up and moving out is
dramatic enough, but the facing
photo of the older couple, makes the
whole story even more heart-rending.
They've lived in the same apartment
for 22 years. Now the kids are gone,
and believe it or not they'd be happy
to move to someplace smaller. But
those darned rent regulations keep
them from doing ' the Right Thing'
since they'd never find anything as
cheap as the $368 they're paying now.
The headline above them reads, "We
can't afford to leave."
The real story in all this is how the
RSA can't afford to tell the whole
truth. Take those 900,000 apartments.
Note that of course they don't actually
say these are all rent regulated, so the
fact that less than half are, or that the
figure includes over half of all public
housing units doesn't make them
liars. Nor does the fact that RSA land-
lords support warehousing of some
25 ,000 empty apartments-a prac-
tice that same city study says would
raise the vacancy rate by 60 percent.
The playful arithmetic and simplis-
tic logic also imply that large num-
bers of rent regulated apartments are
in the hands of people who really
don't need them-a classic argu-
ment. The city's 1984 study says just
over a third of rent stabilized apart-
ments were under $300 a month. And
far from having too much space, New
Yorkers-especially poor and minor-
ity residents-are faced with the
worst overcrowding in 25 years.
What we have here is a housing ver-
LETTERS
Nix Cockburn
To The Editor:
I was distressed to see the back
cover of the March issue of your
magazine in which, as part of a prom-
otion for City Limits, Alexander
Cockburn is quoted. Mr. Cockburn
was fired from the Village Voice after
it became known that he ilccepted a
$10,000 bribe from an Arab group in
order that his vicious attacks on Israel
continue. City Limits, which not too
long ago apologized for printing an
anti-Semitic cartoon in an article
about Borough Park, should be espe-
cially careful in the future about quot-
ing an enemy of the Jewish people in
its ads.
Daniel Horowitz
Manhattan
Nun's Life
To the Editor:
The complaints registered by Syl-
via in the March article, "The Com-
pany of Women," could well explain
why managements of women's resi-
dences yield to development pres-
sures. In attacking the nuns who pro-
vide rooms with cooking facilities at
St. Mary's Residence, she indicates
that she wants all the comforts of an
unsupervised apartment but not the
rent. She also cries that the nuns have
sian of a welfare Cadillac. The rare
rip-off artist who parlays welfare
fraud into a profitable enterprise rep-
resents the vast majority of welfare
recipients who are just keeping their
heads above water, or maybe not. The
RSA would have us believe that the
exception is the rule. Their version
of New York's housing problems and
solutions bear the same relation to
reality as the people in their ads do
to most New Yorkers. Not
much.oPaul Smith
"no real work load" and "don't need
to worry about getting older or getting
sick.' I'd be interested in hearing the
nuns's reaction to that.
Also, has Sylvia considered that
the nuns cannot reasonably expect
their salaries (which I dare guess are
far below Sylvia's) to double, triple
or quadruple over the years, promo-
tions are rarely thought of and the
prospect of marrying millionaires vir-
tually nonexistent. Has Sylvia consi-
dered the difference betweeen a life
dedicated to service rooted in love of
God and a life devoted to self-satisfac-
tion? Perhaps she should.
Mary Brendle
Manhattan
Common Ground
To The Editor:
In light of the recent report of how
the owners of all kinds of buildings
are being ripped off by the oil com-
panies, it seems only logical that
landlords should join forces with the
tenants to put an end to the alleged
corruption within the housing/real
estate industry. All landlords should
give it some thOUght. I I
Joe Reese
Queens
PEOPLE
8iderl7lan Dravvs the 80ttol7l Line
BY DOUG TURETSKY
ABRAHAM BIDERMAN IS A NUM-
bers man. As Mayor Koch's special
advisor for housing coordination and
development, Biderman's job is to put
together fiscal plans for affordable
housing. To Biderman, this means
making the numbers work for private
developers.
"There has to be a natural induce-
ment, you can't force people to build
housing," explains Biderman, reclin-
ing comfortably in a City Hall lounge
near his basement office. "You have
to make it something they think
makes sense for them in many re-
spects. Not necessarily because it
maximizes their profits but because
it protects their investments in other
parts of the city."
One of Biderman's first jobs is to
playa leading role in evaluating the
responses from developers to the
mayor's December challenge to build
affordable housing. He is studying
the suggestions Ruben Glick, Larry
Silverstein, Jerry Speyer, Fred Wil-
pon, Peter Kalikow, Donald 'frump
and others have made for new laws
and zoning policies which would
make it cheaper to build in the city.
While he won't comment specifically
on the plans yet, Biderman insists no
new tax abatements are being consi-
dered, though some fees might be
waived. "The only thing we are giving
them is land."
'frained as a certified public
accountant, the 37-year-old housing
advisor earns $82,500 on his new job.
He started in government in 1974,
working for New York State on fiscal
matters. He came to City Hall just
three years ago, specializing in
economic development projects.
While he admits to only limited ex-
perience in housing, Biderman says
his first major role was as one of the
"key crafters" of the recently ap-
proved legislation using projected
profits from Battery Park City to un-
derwrite the construction of afforda-
ble housing.
Investment Insurance
In the last six or seven years, the
city has induced the private sector to
pump some $10 billion into commer-
cial development, says Biderman. He
believes these developers and finan-
ciers now need to protect their invest-
ments by building housing affordable
to the people who work in the city.
Biderman does not see nonprofit or
community-based developers play-
ing a large role. His reasoning is based
solely on the fiscal numbers.
"The bottom line in housing, par-
ticularly in middle income housing,
is that you have to make it work finan-
cially and there's a limited amount
you can do on a not-for-profit basis,"
explains Biderman. Since few non-
profits have enough capital resources
to undertake projects without re-
questing money from the city, Bider-
man believes the administration
must rely on the private developers
who have substantial resources. "We
have no capital available," he de-
clares.
Subsidized programs like the 80/20
projects are, in Biderman's view, the
way to build housing without heavily
drawing funds out of the city budget.
"The beauty of the 80/20 program is
that, in effect, the 20 percent is sub-
sidized by the 80 percent within the
unit and you don't subsidize from
without." Likewise, he doesn't think
the $100 million in Municipal Assist-
ance Corporation surplus funds ear-
marked for housing development
should be spent outright. "For all
practical matters, when you look at
money that's put away for 30 to 35
years, the principal is a very small
portion of the total. If you used the
principal it really wouldn't make
much difference."
Fiscal Calculation
Despite such restraints on spend-
ing, Biderman says, "We are probably
spending more money than any other
city, even proportionately, any-
where." He adds, "Within our re-
sources we have been putting an in-
creasingly larger share of our budget
into housing. It's one of the mayor's
top priorities."
Declaring the housing crisis a top
priority is different from waging war
on it. Biderman's approach is one of
fiscal calculation rather than social
conscience. Most of the programs he
talks about are geared towards
Abraham Biderman at City Hall:
He has risen from obscurity to special advisor on
housing to finance commissioner in rapid succe-
sion.
families earning between $25- 48,000
per year. Those at the very bottom of
the city's economic scale, the 25 per-
cent of the population estimated to
be living below the poverty line are
basically shut out. He believes the
way to help them is to stabilize the
housing stock on the lowest end by
putting money into code enforce-
ment. The city is not economically
capable of building housing for them,
says Biderman. "We haven't been able
to increase [housing] production. You
can't do that without heavy subsidy."
But Biderman sees nothing wrong
with a system that allows subsidized
co-ops or condos to be resold at a
profit - often pricing them out of the
city's already depleted affordable
housing stock. In fact, he thinks the
profit motive is necessary. "People
knowing they can't make a profit are
forced to stay even though they don't
want that apartment anymore. So the
next person coming along won't have
anywhere to go."
Biderman's plans for creating af-
fordable housing focus on bringing
more people into the real estate mar-
ketplace - a logic stemming from the
federal tax code's write-offs for home-
owners. By exploiting this Bider-
man - and Mayor Koch - believe a
substantial dent can be made in the
city's housing crisis. But such plans,
and the amount of money being allo-
cated, still leave far too many out in
the cold.o
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SHORT TERM NOTES
AFFORDABLE
HOUSING GAP
The U.S. faces a 4 million unit
gap between the need for low
rent apartments and the actual
availability of such housing - a
120 percent growth in that
shortage since 1980, according
to a recent study by the National
low Income Housing Coalition.
While over 8 million renter
households currently need
homes that rent for $184 per
month or less, only 4 million such
low cost units now exist, the
study finds. ''These figures show
how deep the low income
housing crisis is today," says
Barry ligas, Coalition executive
secretary. He points to the link
between that affordable
housing shortage for low
income people and "the
homelessness crisis facing so
many cities."
Using data from the 1980
Census and a 1983 American
Housing Survey, consultant
Cushing Dolbeare estimated the
number of renter households
earning half or less than the
average renter income. For
1985, that amounted to 8.15
million households with annual
incomes at or below $7,366.
Affardability was defined as
costing no more than 30
percent of a household's income.
While the total number of
renters grew 14 percent in the
last five years and the number
in the lowest income category
also grew by 14 percent, the
shortage of housing affordable
to these renters has grown by
2.15 million units.
The Coalition's study looked
at trends nationwide and found
California has the most glaring
gap in housing for low income
renters with a shortfall of
300,600 affordable units. But
New York was not far behind.
With almost one million renters
atorbelowthe median income
and able to pay $188 in rent,
there were only 390,000 such
affordable units to fill their
needs in 1985-0 gap of
537,000.
ligas stresses that the
conclusions, bleak as they are,
actually are conservative since
the study includes all units
renting at a stated level even if
substandard, and assumes that
all units are accessible to low
income households, which is
often not the case.o
BROOKLYN
HOUSING SURVEY
A record number of co-op and
condominium conversions were
recorded in Brooklyn last year
and a projected 25,000 rental
units will be lost to conversion in
the next five years, according to
a recent study by the Municipal
Research InstiMe.
The second in a series of
reports on Brooklyn, IIBrooklyn
Housing Market Profile 1986:
Trends and Outlook" also finds
that sharp rent increases may
cause displacement of low in-
come tenants-especially
black. Hispanic and elderly
renters. While Brooklyn is
experiencing revitalization and
upscale development in some
areas, for the grawing
population of minority people,
rising rents and competition for.
housing will be devastating.
urhe theme of the study is
really 'two Brooklyns,'" says
Daniel McCarthy, director of the
MRI. His research shows that
Brooklyn is overwhelmingly a
borough of renters-who
occupy71 percentofunits-but
that one third of all renter
households are living below the
poverty level.
Other findings of the prafile
are equally grim far Braoklyns
low income and renter
population. While the quality of
housing in gentrifying areas
improves far middle and upper
income people, over 20 percent
of rental housing needs
moderate rehabilitation. Over
56 percent of all rental units
were built befare 1930 and
many still have the original
plumbing, electrical and heating
systems. Overall the profile finds
a housing gap in Brooklyn of
136,000 units to fill the current
shortage and replace dilapi-
dated units.O
Con Ed plant on 14th Street and Avenue 0 :
Public ownership would drastically reduce electric rates.
POWER FOR
THE PEOPLE
New York City andWestches-
ter residents pay the highest
electric rates in the continental
United States, says Assembly-
man James Brennan. He
describes the costs as a
"hardship and a drain on the
public." Demanding cheaper
rates, Brennan, along with
several other Assemblymem-
bers, has co-sponsored a bill to
tum Consolidated Edison into a
nonprofit public utility.
Assembly Bill 8900 calls far
the state to buyout Con Ed's
generating equipment and
other property and run the
system as a publicly-owned
utilitythatwould not have to pay
dividends to stockholders or
federal income taxes. The
buyout would be financed by
tax-exempt bonds.
There are appraximately
3,100 publicly-owned power
systems in the country, serving
roughly 25 percent of the
population. These people pay,
on the average, 40 percent less
than those served by privately-
owned systems. Such savings
lead Brennan to believe, "The
legislation would have an
extremely positive impact on the
economy as a whole."
Con Ed Spokesman Marty
Gitten responds that this is not
the first time such legislation has
been proposed - and
defeated. Gitten says the major
reasons far Con Ed's high rates
are taxes and fuel costs. ':6. very
quick way to cut 28 percent of
our rates would be to exempt us
from the municipal and state
taxes," explains Gitten. "Of all
the taxes we have to pay, the I
only tax we're allowed to spell
out on bills is sales tax."
Brennan concedes that strict
environmental laws force Con
Ed to use low-pollutant fuels
which are more expensive. But
he disagrees strongly with the
tax argument. The public utility
bill calls for continued payment
of state and local taxes.
Brennan also charges that much
of the federal tax paid to Con
Ed by ratepayers never reaches
government coffers. The money
is deferred through investment
tax credits and equipment
depreciation write-offs, says
Brennan.
'What costs the public the
most-and provides the
biggest returns for Con Ed - is
a rate system that bases profits
on the amount the company
invests in itself. This leads to the
construction of big, centrol
station generating plants-
particularly nuclear plants-'
which are the most costly. "The
present investor-owned
monopoly encourages the use
of the most expensive systems,"
declares Brennan.
But Gitten counters, "Theres
nothing we can do without
going to public hearings and
getting approval. . we can't just
build a generotor to raise our
rote base." Gitten adds that the
Public Service Commission also
sets utility rates so the company
cannot make more than a 15
percent profit. Brennan charges,
however, that Con Ed has been
making well above the limit for
same time and has simply
conspired with the PSC to defer
any rote hikes until the profit
margin is lower.
The future of a publicly-
owned, democratically-control-
led power company for New
York City and Westchester is
brighter than ever, according to
Brennan. In light of the
well-publicized failings of the
Long Island lighting Company,
the public power movement is
gaining momentum. Both
Governor Mario Cuomo and
Senate Majority LeaderWarren
Anderson have voiced support
for a state takeaver of lILCO.
Brennan believes this will serve
as a catalyst for the Con Ed bill.
He declares, "The case for
public power has been
painstakingly revealed to the
state legislature."D
DEVELOPERS
GO ON-LINE
The Real Estate Board of New
York has a new service for its
members: a high-powered
computer system that has listings
on just about every piece of
property in Manhattan. Warren
Wechsler, a spokesperson for
the Board, describes the
computer service as a "compila-
tion of all the public information
regarding real property that the
professional might want."
The main feature of the
system, though, is its ability to
provide Board members with
special reports. These reports
can quickly detail the impact of
zoning, tax revisions, new city
policies or other factors on the
value of specific properties.
A handy tool for the Boards
elite members, the system has
already been put to use. The first
much to the chagrin of
the Real Estate Board according
to one report, were brothers
Ralph and Joseph Bernstein,
infamous proprietors of the
New York land Company and
agents of the Philippine dictator
Ferdinand Marcos and his wife
Imelda.D
RENTCODEHEAR-
INGS
John Gilbert, head of the Rent
Stabilization Association was
wearing a bullet-proof vest.
Many landlords were wearing
"Save New York's Housing
buttons." One tenant was
armed with a whistle to shrilly
punctuate landlord comments.
In general, the public hearings
Thursday evening, April 10 were
no disappointment for those
expecting the usual pyrotechnics
when landlords face off against
tenants to discuss rent regula-
tions.
On both April 10 and 11, the
state Division of .Housing and
Community Renewal enter-
Students and cammunity activists erected a shantytawn at Columbia Uni-
versity to protest racism in South Africa and in Morningside Heights. Part
of weele-/ong National Anti-Apartheid Action, the event was organized
here by Morningside Tenants Federation and the Coalition for a Free South
Africa April 2. Columbia U. still holds $28 million in S. Africa-related invest-
ments.
tained all comments and
criticisms of its proposed draft
revision of the Rent Stabilization
code that regulates some
900,000 apartments in the five
boroughs.
Tenants and their advocates
such as Susan Radosh of
Metropolitan Council on
Housing and East Side
Assemblyman Pete Grannis
were unanimous in condemning
two particular provisions in the
proposed code as inequitable
and dangerous for tenants.
One area of concern involves
the right of succession and how
tenants are defined in the code.
Grannis and others such as
Bernice Siegal of Queens
league of United Tenants
(QlOUT) noted that the draft
would exclude siblings,
grandparents and stepchildren
from the rightto a lease renewal
if they have lived in residence
with the tenant named on the
lease should that leasee die or
move. Assemblyman Ed Sullivan
objected to the requirement that
family members be in residence
for at least one year to have the
right to succession and
suggested instead six-months.
Sullivan also called the
definition oftenant" a slap in the
face to the gay community"
because it excludes unrelated,
unmarried couples.
Bertha Keller of the Northwest
Bronx Community and Clergy
Coalition reminded the DHCR
panel that "we hear about free
enterprise and that means
taking risks. You make money or
you may lose it," and urged
protections for tenants in
buildings that have received
421 a tax abatements' whose
rents will lose regulation.
A section of the draft that
addresses rent increases
allowed to landlords that make
Major Capital Improvements
also drew much criticism from
both sides, with landlords
complaining the proposed six
percent cap on rent increases
was too little and tenants
insisting that permissible MCls
needed to be clearly spelled out
to prevent landlords from
making unnecessary repoirs just
to raise rents.
DHCR Commissioner William
Emicke informed the audience
at the start of the hearings that
the 12-person panel would
consider comments and issue a
decision within 45 days.q
~ h e Bronx
If They Raise the Rents ...
"If they raise the rents, we'll all live
in tents!" So chanted the 450 plus
crowd in the parish center of Our
Lady of Refuge Church on February
27 for a public forum on Affordable
Neighborhoods. Tying together issues
facing tenants, decent landlords and
shopkeepers, the Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition has
presented the initiatives unveiled at
the forum to Mayor Koch as a neigh-
borhood response to his request to
developers for ideas for on how to
create "moderate income housing."
The Coalition's package calls for in-
creases in the New York State Housing
Trust Fund and the Homeless Hous-
ing Assistance Program; comprehen-
sive rent reform; co-op conversion
protections; and a commercial rent
increase moratorium.
Housing the Homeless
In Mount Hope, there are two ap-
proaches to housing the homeless.
One way is to dump homeless
families en masse into vacant and oc-
cupied city-owned buildings without
benefit of any attendant social ser-
vices. This is the HPD way it appears.
The other way is to integrate the
homeless into the surrounding com-
munity. As an example, the Mount
Hope Organization has proposed to
rehab 2001-11 Morris Avenue with
Housing Trust fund money, setting
aside 10 percent of the units as trans-
itional housing for homeless families.
Mount Hope will be reviewing this
agreement at a late April meeting be-
tween HPD Deputy Commissioner
Felice Michetti and the Northwest
Bronx Coalition.
Happy Anniversary
Saturday, April 12, the Northwest
Bronx Community and Clergy Coali-
tion held its 13th Annual Member-
ship Meeting. And on Saturday, May
10, the Coalition will host an anniver-
sary dinner dance at Fordham Univer-
sity.oLois Harr
Brooklyn
Not on My Block
Park Slope residents were given
short notice that the 14th Street Ar-
mory was to become a shelter for
homeless families. The Human Re-
sources Administration prepared the
Armory, but the families never came.
Several weeks later the community
was given 24-hour notice that the
shelter would house homeless men.
The men arrived immediately.
Tempers flared as residents felt
they were never adequately consulted
by HRA officials. "We're angry over
the lack of process," complains Com-
munity Board 6 District Manager
Robert Acito. Adds Assemblyman
James Brennan, whose district in-
cludes the Armory neighborhood,
"Nothing could alienate people more
than a sudden, disruptive incursion
into their neighborhood."
Some community members believe
the HRA's original intention was to
house homeless men at the site.
"Everyone felt lied to," says Acito.
But HRA spokesperson Susan Trazoff
states, "We feel we have been honest
with the community since the begin-
ning." Trazoff explains that the need
for beds for homeless families leveled
off while demand for space for home-
less men mounted. "The bottom line
is we were out of beds for a specific
population and we have to provide
for them," asserts Trazoff.
"Every community in New York
City should be of assistance," says
Brennan, "but I think every commu-
nity has the right to develop a plan
that is satisfactory to itself." He ad-
mits that reactions were "mixed"
even to housing homeless families.
But residents were particulariy in-
censed over sheltering men at the site
because of its proximity to a daycare
center and elementary school.
A recent meeting between commu-
nity residents and HRA officials
failed to ease the anger. "The city did
a point blank refusal to alter the situ-
ation in any way, including a commit-
ment to keep the number of people
at the same level," says Brennan.
Despite community fears over the
70 men in the shelter, Acito concedes
there have been few problems. Trazoff
comments on the demands of some
residents, "It's not a prison, it's a shel-
ter. They're not criminals. They're
homeless people."
Safety in Numbers
Almost 600,000 Brooklynites live
in small buildings not covered by the
city's rent regulation laws. Their vul-
nerability was made vivid when the
owner of 124 St. Nicholas Avenue, a
four- unit building, moved to evict a
101-year-old mother and her 72- year-
old daughter. Concetta and Josephine
Thmbarello have lived in the
Bushwick apartment for 13 years.
The landlord, Wei J. Lee, claims she
wants the Tumbarellos' apartment for
her own father. Lee bought the build-
ing two years ago with two empty
apartments.
On April 9th, Housing Court Judge
Margaret Kammer dismissed the case
because the eviction papers had been
improperly filed. But according to
Brooklyn Legal Services Lawyer Lisa
Pearlstein, who is representing the
Tumbarellos, "The landlord's lawyer
told me they are going to bring the
case again."
Landlords in unregulated small
buildings can evict tenants because
they want the apartment for "per-
sonal use." The problem is that no
one ever checks to see if family mem-
bers actually move in. "My theory of
the case," states Pearlstein, "is that
as soon as the Thmbarellos are out,
the landlord is going to jack up the
rent because it's a nice apartment, a
nice neighborhood, and rent it to
some yuppie. "
Just three days after winning the
case, Concetta Tumbarello
died.On.T.
Manhattan
Phipps Houses, the first develop-
ment for blacks in this country, built
at the turn of the century, may soon
be sold. The eight buildings, all six-
story walk-ups, are in the shadow of
Lincoln Center on West 63rd and 64th
Streets. They are the last vestiges of
the black neighborhood called San
Juan Hill.
Six years and more than 300 vacant
apartments later, the AImi Manage-
ment Group, now merged into the
Century Circuit Corporation, is lining
up a potential buyer to pay at least
the $10 million dollar price tag tacked
on them when first acquired in 1980.
The history of tenants fighting for ser-
vices at Phipps Houses is as long as
the list of artists, musicians and fa-
mous folk who have called it home
in its aO-year existence.
In the early years, Phipps Houses
was a meeting place for those who
formed the NAACP and the Urban
League. Jazz great Thelonious Monk
lived there for 45 years. Now only 65
families remain, many elderly, alone,
on fixed incomes and as much as 60
years invested there.
Since the buildings were sold by
the nonprofit that owned and man-
aged them until 1961, Phipps Houses'
tenants have seen 30 owners and 25
years of landlord neglect. The winter
of 1980 was brutal and the lack of
heat emptied many units. Some ten-
ants were given $300 to move. An el-
derly tenant subsequently died of
pneumonia. As the apartments were
vacated, they were stripped of plumb-
ing fixtures, vandalized and left to
rot.
Elizabeth Koob, attorney represent-
ing one tenant in an eviction suit,
calls the buildings a "breeding
ground for drugs and criminal activ-
ity." Her client's home was rendered
uninhabitable five years ago due to
extensive water damage that has only
recently received attention.
Tenants have had rent strikes, took
Almi to housing court and tried to
get a 7a administrator. Says Cole Mob-
ley, president of the tenants associa-
tion, Almi was "able to skate by with
promises in court, always providing
some excuses" why repairs could not
be made. Heat and hot water were
sporadically provided this winter
and services were minimal, a "hold-
ing action," according to Mobley
until a sale could be sealed. Ar-
chitects and engineers were sent by
potential buyer Peter Sudarsky to
check the investment potential. A
Sudarsky representative approached
tenants to find out what they might
settle for, a tactic tried by two de-
velopers in the past. One possibility
raised by Sudarsky is to retain one
building for current tenants.
Speculation pays off. When City
Limits covered this story in the sum
mer of 1983, an Almi rep, responding
to the litigation and publicity di
rected to the Phipps Houses was
quoted saying, "although we're hav-
ing some trouble with the city right
now, this is really going to be some-
thing in a couple of years ... you can't
10se."DMary Breen
Queens
Termination Van Ride
When Human Resollrce.s Adminis-
tration official Robert Fleck referred
to the excursions homeless families
in hotels are taken on to view poten-
tial apartments as "termination van
rides," Theresa Greenberg couldn't
believe her ears. It conjured images
of WWII and concentration camps
and she told Fleck so at the February
meeting in Queensborough Hall.
Fleck laughed.
Greenberg is the co-convener of the
Northwest Queens Task Force on
Homeless Families and takes such
matters seriously. The meeting with
HRA officials focused on their new
"termination policy" for 410 home-
less families that have been sheltered
in hotels for 18 months or more. The
purpose is to discourage such
families from getting too comfortable
in welfare hotels, in keeping with
Mayor Koch's get-tough policy on the
homeless.
"The 410 families will be given a
special ride to look at one apartment
each," says Greenberg, "and if they
refuse to take it, they will be sent back
to congregate shelters" - like the
notorious Roberto Clemente in the
Bronx. The only reasons HRA will
accept for a family refusing an apart-
ment are if a family member has a
chronic illness and requires nearness
to a medical facility; or if the unit has
stairs that someone can't climb.
That's outrageous, thinks the Task
Force. They believe quality of life mat-
ters should be considered acceptable
criteria for a woman with children
who rejects an apartment inan unsafe
building or neighborhood. The Task
Force is calling on HRA Commis-
sioner George Gross to expand the
reasons for refusal.
The city is turning the screws on
homeless families in other ways too,
says Greenberg. ''At Income Mainte-
nance Centers, people on their first
visit are being required to sign a form
that says if they refuse an apartment,
they lose both the welfare hotel pay-
ment and food allowance." Such
forms are used throughout the city.
Queens currently has 12 percent of
the city's homeless families, shel-
tered in 14 hotels such as the Thrf and
Westway in Astoria, the Mets in
Woodside and the Travelers. North-
west Queens alone has 175 homeless
families .
Homeless families are also being
moved every two to three weeks,
notes Greenberg, to prevent them
from attaining the legal rights that ac-
crue to those whose tenancy reaches
30 days or longer. While many home-
less families have more than 30 days
chalked up, few are aware of their
rights. To address that failure, the
Thsk Force will sponsor workshops
for Queens hotel residents at the
Travelers (with 103 homeless
families) and the Mets in Woodside
(60 families). Legal Aid lawyers will
inform people of their rights as ten-
ants if they get eviction notices as
well as their right to a hearing before
any welfare benefits are cut off.
To contact the Northwest Queens
Task Force on Homeless Families, call
Theresa Greenberg: (718) 779-3213; or
Larry Long: (718) 626-8512.DA.F.
FEATURE
A Real Look at Rent Control
BY MICHAEL MANDEL
In April 1979 the voters of Santa
Monica, California received a post-
card in the mail. On one side was a
photograph of an abandoned five-
story brick tenement, its ground floor
windows boarded up and desolate.
On the back a printed message
warned: "This is a New York City
apartment building, devastated by
rent control. Don't let it happen
here!"
Although these tactics failed in
Santa Monica and rent control pass-
ed, rent control opponents continue
to use the same arguments. In an
editorial from spring of last year, The
New York Times gave its view of rent
regulation: "The social costs [of rent
control] have been staggering. They
include the decay and abandonment
of whole neighborhoods of excellent
apartment buildings ... and the de-
moralization of builders and inves-
tors who so fear rent regulation that
they refuse to build unsubsidized
rental units."
These charges have been repeated
often and loudly enough that even
tenants have begun to believe in the
harmful effects of rent control. Stun-
ned by scenes of burnt-out buildings
in the South Bronx, it is easy to accept
that rent control is the problem, and
that we could cure all our housing
ills by accepting the bitter medicine
of the free market.
But rent control (or regulation)
doesn't deserve its bad press. Cities
with rent control may have problems
with housing abandonment and
decay, but so do their non-rent-con-
trolled counterparts. There is no evi-
dence that rent control leads to lower
rates of rental construction or less
maintenance. In fact, none of the
apartments shown in the Santa
Monica postcard were subject to rent
control at the time the building was
abandoned.
On the other hand, rent control by
itself is not a solution to housing
problems. Many renters suffer as
much from low incomes as from high
rents. Even a strict rent control law
L
aws to cap legal rent increases are to
blame for everything from building
abandonment to homelessness, say critics.
But economist Mandel dispels that myth
to show rent controls as a vital strategy for
affordable housing.
would not ensure adequate affordable
housing.
The Nitty Gritty
The idea of regulating rents by law
has been around at least since World
War I, when rent control was intro-
duced in a few cities to deal with the
influx of workers. The first large-scale
application of rent control, however,
only came during World War II (By
'rent control' we mean any policy of
legally regulating rents, so that the
term includes both rent control and
rent stabilization in New York City).
. As part of the. overall price controls,
rents were frozen nationwide during
the war. Housing construction
slowed to a halt, but only because of
wartime restrictions on use of mater-
ials.
Immediately after the war ended,
the nationwide freeze was lifted. For
the next 20 years, only New York City
in the U.S. had any form of rent con-
trol (though most European countries
have maintained some form of rent
regulation in the postwar years).
In the early 1970s, the growth of
the civil rights and student move-
ments combined with inflation to
create a push for rent control laws.
New Jersey, California, New York, and
Massachusetts enacted 'local option'
laws, which permitted individual
municipalities to pass rent control
laws. (Berkeley, Cambridge, and Bos-
ton were among the cities taking ad-
vantage of this). During the same
period, other cities tried to enact rent
control laws which were either voted
down (as in Ann Arbor and East Lans-
ing) or declared unconstitutional
(Miami Beach).
By the end of the 1970s, rent con-
trol movements had lost momentum,
with Boston, New York, and
Washington D.C. all significantly roll-
ing back their rent control laws. The
passage of rent control in Santa
Monica represented a rare victory in
that period (though last year the Su-
preme Court ruled that Berkeley's
rent control statute did not violate
federal antitrust laws).
Today about 100 communities
nationwide have some form of rent
control. While they are not all large
cities (Bayonne, New Jersey and
White Plains, New York for example),
almost without exception they are
concentrated on the East and West
Coasts, where rental units' make up
an important part of the housing mar-
ket.
Most of these cities have what is
called moderate rent control. These
laws allow rents to increase if operat-
ing costs (such as the price of fuel)
and maintenance costs rise. The laws
either allow landlords to raise their
rents by the rate of inflation, or re-
strict rent increases to the actual
changes in cost. In cities where land-
lords are only permitted to pass on
cost increases, rents tend to rise more
slowly, since typically only half the
rent money collected goes to operat-
ing costs. (The rest goes to paying off
the mortgage and to profits.)
In addition, most moderate relit
control laws exempt new construc-
tion from rent control, either initially
or permanently. Many cities also now
have vacancy decontrol, which per-
mits a one-time rent increase when
tenants move or are evicted.
New York City's post-1974 rent con-
trol statutes (both rent control and
rent stabilization) are an example of
. l moderate rent control. Landlords are
allowed to raise their rents each year
by an amount which depends on the
index of operating costs compiled by
the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
By comparison, some communities
have loose rent control (also known
as "market-based" or "fair-rate of re-
turn" laws). These statutes generally
peg rents to the levels charged in
nearby non-rent-controlled cities,
and exert little effect over the rent
level. The basic principle behind
loose rent control is that the profita-
bility of landlords should be pro-
tected. Loose rent control may protect
renters in neighborhoods experienc-
ing rapid speculative rent increase,
but it is of little use in maintaining
affordable housing for the commu-
nity as a whole.
Restrictive rent control laws, such
as those which existed in New York
City until 1969, would actually freeze
rents for all tenants, or at least for
poor tenants. Recent attempts to
enact restrictive laws have been
struck down in court as unconstitu-
tional-as violating landlords' rights
to a "fair rate of return" and to protec-
tion from "unreasonable seizure" of
property. No city currently has re-
strictive rent control (though some
areas have frozen rents for a year or
more).
Opponents of rent control argue
that rent control makes it unprofita-
ble to maintain, build, or own mul-
tifamily housing. In 1985, John Gil-
bert, executive director of the Rent
Stabilization Association (a landlord
lobbying group) testified that "rental
housing is no longer a viable enter-
prise."
However, under today's rent control
laws this argument doesn't hold
water. When rents are adjusted up-
ward each year by the rate of infla-
tion, a landlord will always receive
the same net profit as slhe earned at
the time of the law's enactment. In
addition, the landlord will benefit
from any increase in the value of his
or her building. The rent control law
itself will not cut into landlord prof-
its, and therefore, cannot drive land-
lords out of business.
Nevertheless, rent control is
blamed over and over again for a mul-
titude of housing problems. The most
serious charge is that rent control
leads to housing decay and abandon-
ment. According to a WlIl Street Jour-
nal editorial, "rent controls, in New
York and other cities, have destroyed
a large part of the housing stock." At
a 1984 meeting of the Westchester
Rent Guidelines Board, a group of
landlords stood at the back of the
room and chanted in unison, "South
Bronx, South Bronx."
. But rent control cannot be the main
cause of abandonment, since cities
with rent control are not the only
ones suffering housing problems. A
1978 housing study done by the fed-
eral government showed that eight
cities ' reported major abandonment
problems (Camden, Cleveland, Gary,
Lynn, New York City, Oakland, St.
Louis, and Toledo). Out of these only
New York City had some form of rent
control.
Even in New York City, detailed
studies of abandonment have con-
cluded that rent regulation is not re-
sponsible. In Manhattan, neighbor-
hoods where a high proportion of
apartments are rent controlled typi-
cally have little abandonment. Even
in the much maligned South Bronx,
rent control seems not to have been
the major case of abandonment. In
1977, the Women's City Club, one of
the older civic organizations in New
York City, made a very detailed exami-
nation of 38 individual buildings in
a neighborhood undergoing abandon-
ment in the South Bronx. Based on
data from a five year period, they con-
cluded that the chances of a building
becoming abandoned were not re-
lated to the maximum level of rent
permitted in that building. They
f o ~ n d that abandonment more often
VERS US TENAN
ARGUING OVER
RENT CONTROL
resulted from depressed renter in-
comes and high interest rates faced
by landlords.
There is also no direct evidence
that rent control even reduces the
level of maintenance of a building.
Separate studies of maintenance ex-
penditures in Massachusetts and
New Jersey found little difference in
spending levels between similar rent
controlled and non-rent-controlled
buildings. Even a recent report done
by Arthur D. Little, Inc., for the Rent
Stabilization Association found that
apartments which came off rent con-
trol and rose to market level showed
no improvement in quality. On the
other hand, it is possible that rent
regulation may increase maintenance
if the granting of rent increases is con-
tingent on maintaining the property.
According to both landlords and ten-
ants, the low vacancy rates for New
York apartments give landlords little
incentive to do proper maintenance
and upkeep, even if rents are suffi-
cient to cover costs. In such cases,
the only reason to perform services
is a legal one.
Opponents of rent control often
also allege that rent control discour-
ages new construction. According to
John Gilbert, the abolishment of rent
regulation would mean that "rents
would rise to market levels in the
strong residential areas ... and there
would be widespread construction of
rental housing in all areas of the city."
This argument is difficult to refute,
since no one really knows how much
pent-up demand would translate into
real construction in the absence of
rent control, since construction de-
pends on demand which is difficult
to measure. However, there is at least
some evidence suggesting that other
factors besides rent control are rest-
raining construction. First of all, in
cities where new construction is
exempt from rent control (as in New
York City), rent control should have
no effect on new construction. Sec-
ond, New Jersey offers a case where
some but not all cities enacted some
form of rent control during 1973 or
1974. In these cities, apartment con-
struction fell by 52 percent between
the periods 1970-1972 (pre-rent-con-
troll and 1975-77. However, apart-
ment construction in New Jersey
cities without rent control dropped
by 88 percent over the same period.
While this is not conclusive, not hav-
ing rent control did not save these
cities from a precipitous decline in
housing construction.
Moreover, because of high costs,
any new construction in New York
would have to charge steep rents to
be profitable. According to a 1985 re-
port of the Real Estate Board (an as-
sociation of builders, managers, and
owners), a newly-built two- bedroom
apartment in Manhattan would have
to go for $3,000 a month to provide
a "reasonable" rate of return to its
owners (though lower interest rates
now would lower this number some-
what). According to one developer, "I
wouldn't mind building housing at
outrageous prices if it would be re-
nted ... but the problem is that the
prices are so outrageous that no one
will rent them." Even in the absence
of rent controls, developers will only
build housing for the richest tenants.
Finally, it is often alleged that in
cities with vacancy decontrol, rent
regulation will discourage movement
between apartments. Since the sys-
tem penalizes new tenants, people
have incentives to stay in apartments
which are too big for them. However,
there is no good evidence about the
prevalence of these mismatches. Ac-
cording to one study of New York City,
in 1981 12 percent of stabilized apart-
ments were 'underutilized', com-
pared to 26 percent of the controlled
apartments. However, over 38 percent
of the decontrolled apartments were
underutilized. Thus, it is not clear
that increased turnover could sig-
nificantly ease the housing problem.
Benefits
The evidence seems to show that
moderate rent control (because it may
reduce but does not eliminate land-
lord profits) has minimal negative ef-
fects. On the other hand, it does have
identifiable positive benefits. Most
cities with rent control now also have
a very high demand for housing. In
the absence of rent control, rent in-
creases in these cities would likely
have far exceeded the rate of inflation.
The classic case is, of course, New
York City. In 1970 the median rent
here was $112, according to Bureau
of the Census figures; in 1983 it was
$309. Adjusted for inflation, median
rents rose only by 14 percent over that
period, no faster than apartment rents
nationwide. Given the pressures of
the New York housing market, at least
part of this performance can be attri-
buted to rent regulation.
In a rapidly appreciating housing
market, rent control can afford some
protection to ,middle- and lower-in-
come tenants, keeping a mix of
people in gentrifying areas.
Moreover, limiting residential rent
creases may also provide some pro-
tection for small business and light
industry. Regulation of apartment
rents may prevent the switching of
land and buildings to residential
uses - a tactic which becomes highly
profitable when gentrification oc-
curs.
The benefits from rent control are
not evenly distributed among all
groups of tenants, however. Since
many cities have vacancy decontrol,
the elderly and long-term stable
household benefit from the low levels
of their original rent. People just en-
tering the rental market and renters
who move frequently tend to pay
higher rents. Often this means that
low-income households do not re-
ceive as much protection from rent
regulation. In New York City, the
buildings which are still rent-control-
led tend to be concentrated in the
higher-income areas of Manhattan.
, Moreover, rent control cannot pre-
vent low-priced apartments from
being abandoned, renovated, or con-
verted to condominiums. Nor can it
stop the trend toward the construc-
tion of high-priced luxury apart-
ments. Rent control holds down the
rents for individual apartments. But
the replacement of low-priced apart-
ments with luxury models may still
cause the average rent in a city to rise
rapidly.
I A Helpful Hand
The shortage of affordable rental
units is not just restricted to New York
and a few other large cities-it is a
Rent control cannot be the cause of abandonment since cities
with it are not the only ones suffering housing problems.
national problem. Between 1970 and
1983, the median share of income
going to rent rose from 20 percent to
30 percent (New York City, surpris-
ingly lagged the national increase,
going from 20 percent to 28 percent).
This is not a small change. Since the
1880s, the rule of thumb has been Ha
week's 'wage for a month's rent." This
25 percent standard in fact reflected
actual conditions for most of this cen-
tury, with poor tenants paying more
and wealthier tenants paying less of
their incomes in rent. The shift to 30
percent conceals a much larger
change for poor tenants. In 1980 re-
nters with incomes under $3,000
paid more than 72 percent of their
income in rent, while those with in-
comes between $3,000 and $7,000
paid 47 percent of their income.
However, rent control would not
have solved this problem. Surpris-
ingly, overall rent levels did not rise
much during the 1970s. Adjusted for
inflation, median rents rose only by
14 percent over the last 15 years (going
from $108 to $315) . In addition, most
of this increase reflected the abandon-
ment of low- price apartments and
their replacement by high-price
apartments. Rents on individual
apartments actually rose, on average,
slower than the rate of inflation in all
large metropolitan areas through the
1970s and early 1980s. This is true
even in New York City, where rents
on individual apartments rose by 123
COlllfC)J limits land-
of profit and
collecting big
It may sometimes
:d squeeze small landlords more than %,
f'WIOelll big onef! th,ey cannot take '
mumd adVBJitage6f tax breaks) bu{'on
r::r:/t Shot11d not
Rent control is an important step in moving housing allocation
from the market to the public domain.
percent between 1970 and 1983, eyen
as the regional price level was rising
by 143 percent.
Meanwhile the primary cause of
housing afford ability problems was
the increasing poverty of tenants.
During the 1970s, home ownership
was very attractive, and many who
could afford to bought a home. The
result was that the composition of
tenant households changed. Between
1970 and 1980, families headed by
married couples dropped from 54
percent to 35 percent of the renter
population. The remaining renters
were more likely to be single parent
households with lower incomes. As
a result, the median income of re-
nters, adjusted for inflation, dropped
by 25 percent between 1970 and 1983,
while the real income of homeowners
only decreased by 2 percent. In New
York City, the gap has widened even
faster, with the income of renters
dropping by 27 percent and the real
income of homeowners staying con-
stant.
If moderate rent control had been
enacted nationwide during the
1970s, it would have kept some but
not most rents down. Moreover, it
would not have touched the main af-
fordability problem - the increasing .
mismatch between high-priced lux-
ury apartments being built and low-
income families looking for rental
shelter. It could not therefore have
completely prevented the drastic in-
crease in the percentage of renter in-
come paid for housing.
Rent control in the 19805
According to Peter Marcuse, a
housing activist who teaches urban
planning at Columbia University,
rents are much faster in the
1980s. Throughout the 1970s, the
value of apartment buildings was in-
creasing rapidly from inflation, pro-
viding large capital gains to land-
lords. This combined with the shift
from rental to home own rship to les-
sen upward pressures on rents.
In the 1980s, however, inflation has
slowed, decreasing the capital gains
accruing to landlords. Moreover, stag-
nant incomes and the high cost of
buying a home have produced a new
group of middle-class "permanent re-
nters" -people who would have
bought a home in the past but who
can't afford one now. Landlords are
now in a good position to demand
higher rents.
As a result, the pressure for some
form of rent control is increasing,
creating the possibility of new coali-
tions between low- and middle-in-
come tenants (although historically
such coalitions have tended to sub-
merge the goals of lower-income ten-
ants to those of other members). Peter
Marcuse expects rent control to be a
likely strategy for such a coalition.
He suggests that direct action, like
rent strikes or squatting, involves
high personal risks, and can expose
tenants to direct landlord or police
pressure. At the other extreme; cam-
paigns for increased public subsidies
are often too remote in their targets
and too diffuse in their impact to gen-
erate major mass involvement. Rent
control is local and direct, and the
issues are familiar to everyone, mak-
ing it an easier goal for emerging co-
alitions.
Rent control by itself is not a com-
plete housing policy, however. It
works to limit rents, but does not
boost the supply of affordable hous-
ing. An effective housing policy
would include provision for rent sub-
sidies, public housing, and regula-
tion of condo- and co-op conversions.
Rent control is one step - but an im-
portant one-in moving housing al-
location from the market to the public
domain.o
An earlier version of this article ap-
peared in the January 1986 issue of
Dollars & Sense. The author teaches
economics at NYU 'Business School
and is a member of the Dollars &
Sense collective.
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BUILDING BLOCKS
Maintenance and Repair
of Roofs
A GOOD ROOF IS CRUCIAL TO THE
well being of all buildings. To main-
tain a roof properly, it is necessary to
understand how the roof is designed
to perform its primary function of
keeping water out of a structure and
to recognize signs of deterioration
that occur as the roof ages.
Roofs are separated into two gen-
eral categories: pitched and flat.
Pitched roofs are usually covered
with either a rigid, or a resilient
shingle. Roofs covered with rigid
shingles such as slate, tile and asbes-
tos rely on the overlapping method
of installation and a steep pitch to
prevent leaks. Rigid shingles are not
fitted tightly to one another and the
pitch is required for water to run off
quickly. Resilient shingles fit tightly
together and therefore can be used on
roofs with a lower pitch. In either case
the shingles can be inspected from
the ground, using binoculars, to find
signs of damage and wear.
Missing or broken shingles and
shingles out-of-alignment are indi-
cators of potential leaks and needed
repairs. Resilient shingles, as they
wear, will lose their granular surface
and show more of the black under-
layer. Corners will becomes rounded,
curled or broken as the roof ages. For
closer inspection of a pitched roof,
including the flashings (metal strips
used in corners where the roof
changes direction) and to make re-
pairs, the services of a professional
roofer may be required. Work on
steeply pitched roofs requires special
equipment; even a shallow pitched
roof can be dangerous for an inexperi-
enced person .
Roof Nails
In the installation or repair of all
shingles, the right type of nail must
be used. Slate and tile require copper
nails so that the life of the nail is equal
to the long life of the shingle. Wood
shingles require a rust resistant annu-
lar ringed nail for holding power and
long life. Metal roofing needs nails of
a similar metal to prevent galvanic
corrosion. Asphalt shingles require a
galvanized or aluminized large head
roofing nail.
A roof with a slope of 2" per foot
or less is treated as a flat roof. Flat
roofs represent a very different sys-
tem. They do not shed water quickly.
In some cases water is actually col-
lected on the roof, and then taken
away through a built-in drainage sys-
tem.
Flat roofs rely on the roofing mater-
ials being sealed together to form a
waterproof surface. The surface
breaks down over time as it loses its
ability to expand and contract with
changing temperature and weather
conditions.
An advantage of a flat roof is that
it is generally accessible and rela-
tively safe for walking. Inspection
should include checking for signs of
drying out, shrinking and separating.
Soft spots and blisters also mean
trouble. The flashing at the parapet
wall, around skylights and hatches
should be checked for cracks. Some
flat roofs have a layer of gravel cover-
ing the roofing to protect it from
harmful solar radiation. Finding a
leak in this case first requires remov-
ing the gravel in the suspect area.
Flat Repair
Damaged areas on a flat roof can
often be repaired easily by squarely
cutting out the damaged section and
then applying alternating layers of
roofing cement and a material such
as 60 pound roofing paper until the
repair is even with the surrounding
area. The top layer should be 2" to 4"
larger than the cut-out section and
securely nailed with galvanized roof-
ing nails. Coat the entire repair with
roofing cement.
Roof repair materials work best
when temperatures are moderate (55
to 65 F). The area to be repaired must
be thoroughly dry and always follow
manufacturer's instructions.
Many new materials recently have
been developed for new roofs as well
as repairs. Some are labeled roof
rnernbmnes and come in liquid, paste
and sheet form. When applied prop-
erly, the products form one solid
piece of very elastic material.
It's important to note that flat roofs
are not normally designed for pedest-
rian traffic or as terraces. If the space
is to be used, the roofing must be pro-
tected with a pad or decking after it
has been determined that the added
weight will not damage the structure .
. Roof inspection should include all
other parts of the building that may
cause leaks that appear to be coming
from the roof, such as the parapet
wall and coping, cornices, chimneys,
skylights, leaders, and gutters.o
For an illustrated fact sheet on roofs
send a self-addressed, stamped en-
velope to HANDIVAN, Cornell
Cooperative Extension, 260 Broad-
way, Room 701, New York, New York
10007. Mention CITY UMITS May
1966.
e
COOPERATIVE
EXTENSION
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
FEATURE
campaign Contributions
the Key for Clinton
Developers
BY BARRY MALLIN
"You can't get anything without
paying for it."
W. M. (Boss) Tweed
I
If Mayor Koch is really serious
about campaign contri-
bution laws, he should take a harCi.
look at complaints from community
groups in the Clinton neighborhood
of Manhattan regarding the selection
of developers for two West Side urban
renewal sites.
At least $235,000 has been spent
by the developers to fill the campaign
coffers of the elected officials respon-
sible for granting approval of the pro-
ject, including $57,500 for Mayor
Koch's own re-election bid.
Outshone by the glare generated by
continuing disclosures of official cor-
ruption, little public attention has
been paid to the long-range pervasive
influence of large campaign contribu-
tions on 'government decision-mak-
ing.
Despite overwhelming community
opposition to a plan that will provide
federal housing funds, tax abate-
ments and low interest bond financ-
ing to build two high-rise luxury to-
wers in a low-rise working-class
neighborhood, the city chose as de-
velopers for the Clinton sites two real
estate firms that were major con-
tributors to the election campaigns of
Board of Estimate members.
Dollar for Dollar
The city designated a firm headed
by Rueben GJick .to develop the site
on Tenth Avenue between 51st and
52nd Streets. Glick gave more than
$170,000 to the election races of six

W
ith attentio:n riveted to nonstop
scandal revelatIons, the whole
Clinton neighborhood is being sold for a
song to developers Ruben Glick and
Segal/Brodsky. It seems there's nothing a
few campaign dollars can't buy.
different Board of Estimate members,
placing him among the top five cam-
paign spenders. In 1985 alone, Glick
contributed $135,250, moving him
up to third place for the year.
Between 1982 to 1985, Glick gave
$47,000 to Mayor Ed Koch, $35,000
to Comptroller Harrison Goldin and
$68,500 to Andrew Stein, former
Manhattan Borough President and
now City Council President, includ-
ing loans to Stein that were later for-
given. Glick also contributed $5,000
to Manhattan Borough President
David Dinkinds' election race.
The city designated the partner-
ship of Norman Segal and Bernard
Brodsky to develop the site on Tenth
Avenue between 52nd and 53rd
Streets. Their company wrote checks
for more than $63,000 to the election
efforts of Board of Estimate members.
Manhattan State Senator Fra:nz
Leichter, whose office has compiled
campaign contribution figures for
major contributors, calls the fundrais-
ing activities of Board of Estimate
members "scandalous." Leichter says
that "the idea that public officials can
receive contributions of tens of
thousands of dollars from persons
and business entities on whose pri-
vate economic interest they must pass
is abhorrent in a democratic system."
Three lawsuits have been filed by
community groups in Clinton to stop
the city's plan based in part on allega-
tions that the developers were given
preferential treatment in the selection
process.
Margot Lewitin, director of the
Woman's Interart Center, a nonprofit
arts group in Clinton threatened with
loss of its space by the city's plan and
a plaintiff in two of the lawsuits, dis-
putes the ethics of allowing city con-
tracts to be awarded to major cam-
paign contributms. "It just seems as
if the whole process was wired from
the beginning," she says.
According to John Glynn, vice pres-
ident of the Clinton Preservation
Local Development Corporation, a
nonprofit group which also is a plain-
tiff in one of the lawsuits, Clinton is
a . community that feels betrayed.
"The original intent and hope of the
urban renewal plan," he says, was to
build low and moderate housing for
the community, to preserve, not up-
root, the existing mix and character
of the neighborhood."
Clinton is one of Manhattan's few
remaining ethnically-mixed working
Site of Glick's proposed development on 10th Ave:
Hig"-ri.e, luxury towers in a working class, "ousing "ungry area.
class neighborhoods. Under sililge as
well are nonprofit theatre and arts
groups that are running out of afford-
able' space, and a diverse mix of
businesses that serve the local com-
munity and the theatre and television
industries. Many of these businesses
have been rooted in the neighborhood
for generations.
Tailor-Made for Developers
Although controversy over the
Clinton urban renewal plan has been
simmering since the city first started
condemning property in'the area 17
years ago, the current conflict goes
back to 1982 when the Department
of Housing Preservation and Develop-
ment (HPD) issued a request for prop-
osals to develop sites 8 and 9c, cover-
ing Tenth Avenue from 51st to 53rd
Streets.
As a counterweight to proposals
from private developers , the Clinton
Preservation Local Development Cor-
poration commissioned Peterson, Lit-
tenberg Architects to create a plan
that would seek to preserve the exist-
ing character of the community and
protect local merchants, non profits
and tenants from displacement.
Their plan stresses rehabilitation of
existing buildings over new construc-
tion, resulting in a greater number of
low and moderate units for the 'same
cost.
"The community proceeded in
good faith," says Glynn, "relying on
HPD assurances that it would fairly
consider our proposal. But then they
changed the rules and didn't tell us.
The only ones who seemed to know
the new rules were the developers
selected by the city."
According to a law suit started in
May, 1985 by the Local Development
Corporation, the selection of process
was "tailor made" to accommodate
Glick and Segal/Brodsky.
The suit names as defendants the
City of New York, Mayor Koch and
former Housing Commissioner An-
thony Gliedman.
It charges that HPD secretly made
the application process less burden-
some for Glick and SegallBrodsky,
while the Local Development Corpo-
ration was disqualified for failing to
meet more onerous conditions.
The complaint alleges that the de-
velopers received private advance
notice of the availability of govern-
ment subsidies for the project. On
July 12, 1984, six days prior to the
public announcement of a competi-
tion for federal Housing Development
Grant (HoDAG) funds , Charles Reiss,
then the Deputy Commissioner at
HPD in charge of development, sent
Glick a letter enclosing a copy of the
HoDAG application and stating:
"Although the RFP specifi-
cally asks for private sites,
we feel that your project
has progressed to the point
where it may be eligible for
HoDAG review and possi-
ble submission to HUD for
grant funds."
The letter was sent to Glick, but
not to the Local Development Corpo-
ration, despite HPD's official posture
that the designation of developers
was still open. The letter was sent six
months before Glick was publicly
named by HPD as the developer for
site 9c. '
In addition, the law suit asserts that
Glick and SegallBrodsky were given
private assurances regarding the use
of tax-exempt bond financing and tax
abatements to lower project costs.
Glynn claims that had the availabil-
ity of such government assistance
been made known to the public, all
interested developers would have
had the opportunity to compete
equally." This was the kind of special
considerations given only to Glick
and Segal/Brodsky," he says.
The original RFP issued in 1982 for
the two sites required that the project
must be self-subsidized, that all plans
must meet existing zoning regula-
tions and that the height of any new
building not exceed 20 stories.
HPD designated Click and Segall
Brodsky as developers despite prop-
osals that deviated from all of these
conditions. The plan called for con- ~
structed of two towers on Tenth Av-
enue', 27 and 31 stories high, with
Glick's site receiving eight million
dollars in federal HoDAG subsidies.
Although the conditions attached
to HoDAG funds restricted builders
to sites that required no zoning
changes, no displacement of residen-
tial tenants, minimum relocation of
commercial tenants and maximum
use of the grant for low income
families, with at least 20 percent of
units set aside for this income group,
Glick's application was funded, the
law suit claims, despite violations of
all these terms.
"If you count the market-rate town-
houses that Glick also intends to
build on the site, then the total is less
than 20 percent new low income
units," Glynn, says.
Glick's proposal will use public
monies to construct a high rise with
open air terraces, bay windows. air
conditioners, ' oak floors. french bal-
conies, and private patios'.
The partnership of Segal/Brodsky,
to its credit"is prepared to build 80
more units of housing than Glick
without a federal grant.
The local Community Planning
l30ard in January voiced overwhelm-
ing opposition (26-0 with 1 absten-
tion) to HPD's acceptance of the Glick
and SegallBrodsky proposals,
The Board criticized the proposals
for undermining the goals of the orig-
inal urban renewal master pllin to
produce at least 1,000 units of low
income housing and 2,000 units of
moderate income housing for Clin-
ton. The goal was to be achieved
through continued community in-
volvement in the redevelopment pro-
cess.
The urban renewal plan as
amended by HPD deleted references
to community participation and
backed off from the original commit-
ment to building only low and mod-
erate income housing. It incorporates
the Glick and.SegallBrodsky propos-
als as integral to the new city plan.
When resources for low income
housing are shrinking, the Board
called "it unconscionable for the City
of New York to provide below-market,
financial subsidies for the construc-
tion of high-rise luxury housing in
an already speculative market."
Community Board 4 decried the
city's failure to provide a written plan
Marvo L_itin of Wom ... '. Interart Center:
Model ./tows development plan community _nfl.
for relocating the businesses, non-
profits and tenants whose establish-
ments and homes will be bull-dozed
out 'of existence by the new construc-
tion.
The Board supported the proposal
created by the Local Development
Corporation. Known as Combo 89,
the plan received high marks from
Paul Goldberger, the architectural cri-
tic of the New York Times,who called
it "far superior to the two towers that
are now proposed for 10th Avenue."
A mid-January public hearing on
HPD's plan before the City Planning
Commission erupted in an outpour-
ing of community protest from a coal-
ition of longtime residents, mer-
chants, artists and nonprofit theatres.
An apparent concession was made
when Planning Commission mem-
bers promised to look at the commu-
nity's alternate proposal before voting
on HPD's plan.
But, says Margot Lewitin, "this
turned out to be another deception."
Lewitin says that information exp-
laining how the community's plan
would be financed was submitted to
the Planning Commission upon the
expectation tHat its members would
give it serious consideration. "We
found out later," she says, "that the
material wasn't even discussed by the
commission members before they
voted."
In March, the City Planning Com-
mission voted 4 to 1 to recommend
approval of the city's amended urban
renewal plan to the Board of Estimate.
In a dissenting opinion, Commis-'
sioner R. Susan Motley argued that
the city's plan would likely result in
even less housing for low income
people than proposed. "The recom-
mended plan includes 100 units of
l o w ~ income housing for the elderly
when it is publicly known that this
John Glynn, at community garden:
Cut out of Clinton development.
application has been denied by HUD
on several occasions," she said.
Motley sharply criticized the Com-
mission for sending "the unmistaka-
ble signal to .real estate and develop-
ment interests that low income hous-
ing is not a problem worthy of our
besUhoughts; that overall neighbor-
hood planning efforts are of less im-
portance than immediate city oppor-
tunities."
"It's shameful," said Michael Ken-
dall, Archdeacon of the New York
Episcopal Diocese, after the Commis-
sion announced its vote. "They are
just allowing the neighborhood to be
given ijway to developers."
Margot Lewitin sees the con-
troversy as one that goes beyond the
confines of the Clinton communitr..
"The city's goal is to open up the tm:'. :
tire Hudson River corridor to major \
real estate developers."
Lewitin points to Battery Park City
on the southern tip of Manhattan, the
recently-opened Convention Center,
the proposed Times Square rede-
velopment and Donald Trump's plans
for Television City on the West Side
as evidence of the tremendous pres-
sure that is bearing down on the Clin-
ton community.
"Everyone is afraid that they will
either be forced out or priced out of
the neighborhood as a result of the
city's development plans," she says.
As a precursor to the winds of
change, Lewitin points to her own ef-
forts t" purcpase from the city the
building in which the Women's In-
terart Center is located. The Center is
now suing the city based on allega-
tion"s, according to attorney Arthur
Block, that HPD reneged on a commit-
ment to sell the building to the organi-
zation to establish a permanent home
for nonprofit theatre and arts groups.
While discussions were going on
with HPD the sale of the building
to the Women's Interart Center, Lew!-
tin believes "HPD was secretly assur-
ing Glick and SegallBrodsky that they
would have the building as a reloca-
tion dump for the non profits forced
off of the other sites."
Lewitin says that the city will be
short about 25,000 square feet of
space to relocate all the groups and
HPD secretely made a funding application process easier for
Glick and SegallBrodsky and gave them advance notice of
subsidies, says the law suit.
Clinton kids ot 0 mural on the Glick block:
One of tile lalt etllnically mixed neighborhoods in Manhattan.
HPD has no plan on how it will be
done.
A new commission on integrity in
city government created in March by
Governor Cuomo and Mayor Koch
says it intends to examine whether
election financing laws are in need
of reform. Given the. cloudy climate
in that community, Clinton would be
a good place to start .looking.D
Barry Mallin is the former director of
the Community Development Legal
Assi.stance Center, now in the private
practice of law and specializing in
nonprofit housing development. He
consulted with the Women's Interart
Center in its attempt to acquire its
building.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
As City Limits goes to press, a new
twist to the Clinton story arose at the
April 17 Board of Estimate hearing.
Community leaders faced what ap-
peared to be a losing battle to prevent
approval of the city's plan by the
Board. But in a dramatic, unexpected
reversal, Mayor Koch withdrew the
plan from consideration minutes be-
fore a scheduled vote.
"The mayor lost the votes to get
this development approved," said
State Senator Franz Leichter, who
represents the Clinton community.
"One of the reasons," he stated, .. is
that members of the Board of Esti-
mate are beginning to understand
that they cannot approve the real es-
tate developments of large con-
tributors without raising questions
the integrity and the impartial-
ity of the decision-making process."
On April 15, Manhattan Borough
President David Dinkins wrote to
Koch, declaring his opposition to the
plan.
Dinkins reasons for opposing the
proposal incluaed: relocation plans
for residential, commercial and cul-
tural that were "sketchy at best and
at worst non-existant;" proposed de-
letion of the original requirement
that 1,000 low and 2,000 moderate
income units be created;" deletion of
references to community involve-
ment as "a major objective;" and
.unanimous opposition to the Glick
and Segal plans by the Community
Board and by all elected officials.
On the eve of the scheduled vote,
City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin
and Council President Andrew Stein
withdrew support. Goldin expressed
concern over changes made in the
criteria for choosing developers and
that apartments proposed for seniors
might not be built.
Despite the demise of the city's
plan, Clinton community leaders
fear what will follow. They point to
the mayor's statement that accom-
panied the withdrawal announce-
ment: .... .I believe the city's interest
will be best served by a total new at-
tempt to market these sites ... We must
not deprive city taxpayers and city
of the maximum revenue
potential that could be realized from
this very valuable city land. "
The last time the city sold off Clin-
ton urban renewal land was in 1980
when the Board of Estimate approved
transfer of a site. on west 51st and
52nd Streets to developer Michael
Lazar for construction of 220-unit
rent subsidized Section 8 project.
Lazar, former City 'fransportation
commissioner, is now under federal
indictment on racketeering and con-
spiracy charges in the Parking Viola-
tions Bureau scandal.
Lazar's Clinton Manor project is
under ' fire from West Side Council-
member Ruth Messinger, who claims
that the developer violated federal
regulations by renting dozens of sub-
sidized apartments to friends and
employees. Since leaving city govern-
ment, Lazar has been a steady con-
tributor to the election campaigns of
Board of Estimate members.DB.M.
PIPELINE
Forging Leaders for COn1n1unity Growth
BY PAT LAMIELL
WHEN VIVIAN BRIGHT ENROLLED
in the Pratt Internship on Community
and Economic Development in 1984,
she had been working with the Be-
rean Baptist Church for just a month
on plans for a new housing project.
Now, over one year and an internship
later, Bright has overseen the realiza-
tion of New Horizons Village on a plot
of urban renewal land that once held
tenements and mobile homes. Neat
rows of 255 attached,single-family
hom'es are going up, first with prefab-
ricated frames, then layers of stucco
for insulation and finally vanilla-col-
ored siding.
Bright also started a small painting,
carpentry and construction busi-
ness-called Miracle Paint Co.-
and she is setting up a food service
company as well. "We've got lots of
things in the pipeline," she says.
Like most graduates of the Pratt In-
ternship, Bright came into the prog- ,
ram already connected to an existing
organization. The year-
which students and
Jeff Deasy cif the People'. Firehou.e:
Training in busine .. planning was invaluable.
teachers unfailingly describe as in-
tensive, teaches interns to put their
organization's , assets to work. They
create community development pro-
jects that meet the needs of both their
neighborhoods and the local organi-
zations.
Each class consists of 25-30 in-
terns, recruited from New York, north-
ern New Jersey and Connecticut. "We
bring rural people and city people to-
gether," says Pat Swann, program
manager, "and it's a real education
for both."
Thition is $2,750 and usually paid
by the intern's sponsoring organiza-
tion. "One woman in Rochester had
a bowl-a-thon to raise her tuition,"
says Swann. Some limited scholar-
ship money from Pratt's funding
sources is available to interns based
on need.
-' Sponsored by the Pratt Institute
~ Center for Community and Economic
(5 Development and the Development
~ Training Institute in Baltimore, the
iii internship program stresses a three-
, way partnership among public and
private fu,ndeI'S and the community.
"There is a whole new layer of
economic and community develop-
ment activists who come out of the
advocacy tradition," says Frank Neg-
ron, the project's field coordinator.
Negron says the internship teaches
them to look at private funding as a
new source of financial self-suffi-
ciency.
The first thing the interns learn is
to analyze their community's eco-
nomy. Where does a neighborhood's
money come from and where does it
go? Is a hardware store needed on this
corner or would a grocery be better?
Who is providing the housing and
can a community-based group do it
better? How can community people
be employed? The idea, according to
Swann, is to "keep the money cir-
culating in a community of
going out, via an absentee landlord
or an absentee business."
Four times during the program, in-
terns gather at a camp or resort out-
side the city for special training ses-
sions organized by Pratt and the Insti-
tute in Baltimore. The first lasts two
weeks and covers basic principles of
accounting and economics, business
development, real estate
ment and management skills. In the
three subsequent sessions, interns
zero in on the skills needed to design
and create a development plan.
Between sessions, interns work on
a practicum-a development project
that they conceive and design for
their organization. The practicum is
usually ' a housing project or small
business - something that can be
taken from the drawing board into the
streets. "Our objective is that each
person has a project that comes to
fruition," says Swann.
The projects are as varied as the
neighborhoods from which they
spring. Lee Beaulac, director of hous-
ing and economic development for
Rural Opportunities, Inc. of Roches-
ter, started a hydroponic lettuce farm.
And in the back of the Better Nutri-
tion Food Cooperative on Fulton St.
in Brooklyn, former intern Atchudta
Earkr sells sandwiches bearing the
names of her favorite heroes like the
Sojourner Truth, featuring tofu and
avocado with a spicy sauce.
Jeff Deasy, director of economic de-
velopment for the People's Firehouse
in Brooklyn, is interning this year.
Capitalizing on his organizations's
concern about . arson, he is starting a
small company that installs sprinkler
systems in residential buildings.
"The training in business planning
has just been invaluable," Deasy says.
"Our operating budget is over $3 mil-
lion. I didn't even know how to read
a financial statement. I just relied on
the accountant to do a good job."
Looking back on her time as a Pratt
intern, Vivian Bright recalls the hard
work involved but thinks the Berean
Baptist Church got its money's worth
when they enrolled her. The whole
New Horizons Village project, which
Bright helped successfully orches-
trate, has sparked a commercial re-
naissance on Pitkin Avenue. "We've
gone to the police department and
the school board to make recommen-
dations about the neighborhood," she
notes, "and that encouraged the
businesses in the area. Now you can't
even get a piece of commercial prop-
erty. The area will never be the
same."O
For information or an application,
call or write: Pratt Institute Center for
. Community and Economic Develop-
ment, Community Economic De-
velopment Internship Program, 379
Dekalb Ave. , Brooklyn, NY 11205;
(718) 636-3679,3486.
providing complete architectural and engineering services to
non-profit
NEW CONSTRUCTION, REHABILITATION AND CONVERSIONS
o Building Evaluation and Inspection
o Feasibility Studies
o Preliminary Design/Scope of Work Studies
o Complete Construction Drawings & Specifications
o Construction Supervision
HUD SECTION 202 SENIOR CITIZENS HOUSING, HOMESTEADING
PROJECTS, GROUP HOMES, HPD RFPS, DSS/HHAP RFPS
Call John Harris RA. for an evaluation of your project's needs
J.C. HARRIS ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS
saOA GATES AVENUE BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 11221 (718)453-2406
CITY VIEWS
Cuomo To Weaken Tenant Protections?
BY MICHAEL MCKEE
"Let me tell you about tenants-
tenants as distinguished from coop
or condominium owners. Tenants are
embattled, vulnerable, not as popu-
lar as they used to be. But tenants
are important because without them
you break the link. They're the mid-
dle class, really, or a large part of it ,
especially the young middle class.
Those are the people I care about. "
MARIO CUOMO WAS JUST A CAN-.
didate for governor when he said that
in an interview. He made specific
campaign pledges to woo tenant
votes in 1982. In leaflets and position
papers, Cuomo pledged to support
bills to strengthen rent controls and
toughen co-op/condo conversion
standards.
But Governor Cuomo has done
none of this since taking office in Jan-
uary 1983. Except for an oblique refer-
ence (written, in fact, by this author)
in his first State of the State message',
Cuomo has been silent on the issue
of tenant protections.
Rather, he has hung back, waiting
to see what the two houses of the
Legislature work out, then deciding
whether to sign or veto the specific
bills sent to him. When challenged
by tenant advocates, Cuomo's staff
refer to the fact that he has signed
legislation (some, such as the Om-
nibus Housing Act of 1983, benefiting
landlords as much as , if not more
than, tenants) as if that constituted
support.
Because New York State has a
"split" Legislature, with an Assembly
of basically pro-tenant Democrats
and a Senate of pro-landlord Republi-
cans, and since it is always easier to
stop bills (the landlords' goal) than
to pass them (the aim of tenants),
Cuomo's passivity is damaging to ten-
ants.
Cuomo even missed the watershed
negotiations in May and June, 1983,
that led to the Omnibus Housing Act.
In fact, Cuomo was caught by surprise
by this legislation to transfer adminis-
tration of city rent regulation to the
state. A slip of the tongue by William
Eimicke, his then-policy advisor on
housing, pushed Cuomo into backing
the bill. Eimicke was quoted in the
New York Times days before negotia-
tions were finalized implying that the
governor was willing to assume re-
sponsibility for this hot potato. Until
then, Senate and Assembly
negotiators were not certain the gov-
ernor would agree.
Enter Eimicke
On April 1, 1984 the state, which
already ran rent controls outside the
city, took over. The Cuomo adminis-
tration and its state Division of Hous-
ing and Community Renewal, unfor-
tunately, proved ill-equipped to han-
dle the transition. Eimicke, who as
Cuomo's senior housing advisor was
in charge of the project, was slow to
act; a deputy commissioner for rent
administration, Manuel Mirabal, was
not appointed until a month befolll
the takeover. A mounting chorus of
criticism, most of it well-deserved,
was directed at DHCR.
A year later, DHCR Commissioner,
Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, was out.
Cuomo "promoted" her to heada new
Advisory Committee for Black Af-
fairs, in June, 1985, and named
Eimicke her successor. Scruggs, how-
ever, refused the demeaning offer and
went to work for Philadelphia Mayor
Wilson Goode.
On the day he appointed Bill
Eimicke DHCR commissioner,
Cuomo issued Executive Order #67,
creating the new office of State Direc-
tor of Housing. Eimicke was also
given this post; and as Director of
Housing, is responsible for develop-
ing "a coherent, unified State housing
policy" and creating "a strong, cen-
tralized administrative structure to
ensure that the programs of [DHCR),
the New York State Housing Finance
Agency, . the State of New York
Mortgage Agency and other State
agencies and public corporations in-
volved in housing are coordinated."
Competition and confusion among
these various agencies has been an
impediment to development of a state
housing policy. .
The executive order also directs
Eimicke to "conduct a compreh.;tn-
sive review and evaluation of the
State's rent regulation system and
Mario Cuomo, friend of tenants?:
His political appointments have not matched iii.
pro-tenant rhetoric.
submit by December 1, 1986 recom-
mendations for changes and improve-
ments."
This provision raised immediate
suspicions among tenant advocates.
Eimicke made no secret of his dislike
of rent regulation. His elevation oc-
curred at the end of a "sunset" year,
when expiring rent laws were up for
periodic renewal. The Legislature
was headed for another deadlock on
changes - due in large.part to the fail-
ure of the Governor to get involved.
Two weeks after the appointment,
sure enough, the rent laws were ex-
tended without amendments until
May 14, 1987.
The deadline for Eimicke's report
is not only five and a half months
before the scheduled expiration of
the rent laws. It is also three weeks
after Mario Cuomo expects to be re-
elected governor. If Cuomo's plan
contains pro-landlord changes that
might alienate tenant voters, better to
release the report after the election.
To spin out the scenario: : iP,
November 1986 Cuomo is re- electea
by a landslide due to his increasing
popularity. In December, Eimicke
submits his recommendations for
rent law changes, including vacancy
decontrol of rent regulated apart-
ments. The governor submits it to the
Legislature as a program bill. This
tilts the balance of power in the Legis-
lature in favor of landlords; the rent
laws are extended in May 1987 with
several amendments watering them
down, including vacancy decontrol.
Under this provision, apartments
would be removed permanently from
rent regulation upon turnover (see
sidebar); over a period of years, the
entire system would be phased out.
Mario Cuomo gets tremendous
favorable publicity from the national
media, always violently anti-rent con-
trol. Finally! A New York politician
courageous enough to risk the wrath
of tenant voters and "do the right
thing" by phasing out rent control.
His face graces the cover of Time
magazine: "Cuomo Bites The Bullet
on Rent Control." Contributions roll
in from grateful real estate developers
and landlords for a presidential cam-
paign the following year.
Paranoid talk? In fact, within weeks
of his appointment Eimicke began
talking approvingly of vacancy de-
control. This was music to the ears Tenant contingent at April rent code hearings:
of landlords. renants voiced their opinions but landlord lobbyist till pack the politico' mutcle.
A Look at
Vacancy
Decontrol
Since 1971, a state vacancy dec on-
trollaw, enacted at the behest of Gov-
ernor Nelson Rockefeller when the
Republicans controlled both houses
of the Legislature, has achieved the
virtual elimination of rent control.
When a tenant moves out of a rent
controlled apartment or dies, the
apartment is "decontrolled," thus al-
lowing the landlord to jump the rent
to any amount the market will bear.
There were 1.265 million apart-
ments under rent control in New York
City in 1970; by 1984, a mere 218,000.
Thqusands of rent controlled apart-
: ments in Nassau and Westchester
Counties, and in the Albany and Buf-
falo areas, have also been lost to de-
control. From 1971 until 1974, full va-
: ~ a n c y decontrol raged. Many rent reg-
uJated tenants were harassed, and
m.any landlords commenced eviction
proceedings in order to obtain vacan-
cies.
But the overwhelming number of
vacancies occurred due to ordinary
turnover: the 1975 Housing and Vac-
ancy Survey counted only 642,000
rent controlled apartments left; half
the stock had been decontrolled in a
mere four years. Tenants who rented
decontrolled apartments discovered
.that they could be evicted at will
when their leases expired, or that to
remain they had to agree to an exorbit-
ant rent increase.
Since 1974, when the Legislature
modified decontrol as part of the
Emergency Tenant Protection Act, va-
cated rent controlled apartments in
New York City and Westchester and
Nassau Counties are placed under the
weaker rent stabilization system after
the initial decontrol, but only in
buildings with six or more units.
Thus, tenants in these . newly-
stabilized units have the right to
renew their leases, and future rent in-
creases are limited. Tenants in smal-
ler buildings have no rent or eviction
protections at ~ l l , except for a few re-
maining rent controlled units.
Vacancy Decontrol has been an ef-
fective mechanism for phasing out
rent control and phasing in a much
weaker rent stabilization system. But
landlords want decontrol for rent
stabilized apartments as well, which,
if achieved, would gradually elimi-
nate all rent and eviction protections.
The motivation for landlords to re-
place low rent paying tenants with
higher priced ones is a great danger.
Decontrol proponents insist it won't
hann tenants in place. But this over-
looks some clear negative effects: no
regulated tenant would ever be able
to move; landlords would have an
enormous incentive to harass regu-
lated tenants in order to "encourage"
them to move; a new class of unpro-
tected tenants would be created; the
deregulation climate would result in
higher legal rent increases for the re-
maining regulated apartments, as reg-
ulated tenants would be perceived to
be less politically significant; and, at
some point, so few regulated tenants
would remain that politicians would
feel safe in eliminating all con-
trols.OM.M.
r
Landlords Offer A Bribe
Last year Rick Rosan and Larry Sil-
verstein of the Real Estate Board of
New York came up with a Vacancy
Decontrol Buyout proposal: let land-
lords pay $1,000 per decontrolled
unit into a state administered Hous-
ing Thust Fund to build low-income
housing. It is this proposal, or a vari-
ation on it, that Eimicke supports.
In a July 1985 interview, Eimicke
told the New York Times that the
Rosan-Silverstein proposal had merit
but the $1,000 payment was too low.
In January, the Times quoted him tel-
ling landlords at a Rent Stabilization
Association seminar that "he would
recommend to the Governor by next
December some form of vacancy de-
control for luxury apartments." Juicy
Eimicke quotes also appeared in Real
Estate Weekly, an industry trade rag,
as he became the toast of the town at
various landlord-sponsored events.
Last October, Eimicke hired
Richard Runes as a policy consultant.
For three years Runes, in his capacity
as counsel to the State Senate Hous-
ing Committee, had been the prime
advocate for the real estate industry
within the Legislature. Runes .killed
numarous pro-tenant bills and won
several pro-landlord concession in
the negotiations over the Omnibus
Housing Act.
Runes has a thriving private law
practice, representing numerous
landlords. He also owns part of a de-
velopment site at 36th St. and Second
Avenue in Manhattan where his
clients, S & M Enterprises have for
several years tried to empty apart-
ment buildings to construct a new
high-rise building. On October 30,
1985 --after Runes went to work for
DHCR - Deputy Commissioner
Mirabal fined S & M's Perl binder
brothers $13,500 for harassing .ten-
ants at this location.
According to the consultant's agree-
ment signed by Eimicke and Runes
(obtained only after New York State
Tenant and Neighborhood Coalition
chairperson Bill Rowen sued Eimicke
under the state Freedom of Informa-
tion Act) Runes will get $64,000 for
800 hours' work. His job is to: draft
the Rent Stabilization Code; studyef-
fects of rent regulation, prepare "an
option paper outlining necessary
modifications to existing statutes or
regulations," and draft proposed
legislation; and analyze tax abate-
ment programs and construction
costs.
Thnants Thke The Offensive
About the same time Runes was
hired, DHCR Tenant Advisory Com-
mittee meetings were suspended-
from September to January. Members
had been promised a meeting with
Eimicke since his appointment. But
after the September meeting, Mirabal
told committee members Eimicke
would not meet with them.
Eimicke's perceived bias and game
plan has energized tenant advocates
and brought traditionally-feuding
umbrella organizations closer to-
MAYBE WE cAN
WRITE IN A cooP
CONVERSION
L..OOP HOL.E
,.US YE.A R.
gether. Differences have been set
aside to present a united front against
a clear danger. A new Tenant Unity
Coalition formed and for the first time
in years, all tenant groups from the
New York metropolitan area are work-
ing on a joint mobilization to lobby
in Albany on Thesday, May 13.
. Collaboration began December 18,
when 100 tenants showed up at
Eimicke's World Thade Center office
to demand a meeting. The delegation
serenaded DHCR workers with spec-
ial Christmas carols such as, "Runes
the Red-Nosed Landlord." After two
hours, the carolers left with a promise
for a meeting with Eimicke. DHCR
representatives agreed there would
be no limit on who could attend.
But when 300 tenants arrived for
the arranged meeting on January 9,
Eimicke was a no-show, even though
he had appeared before several
hundred landlords at the RSA semi-
nar earlier in the week. The meeting
thus turned into a sit-in at DHCR, and
Mirabal was shouted down every
time he tried to speak. On Sunday,
February 2- Ground Hog Day-
more than 200 tenants picketed
Eimicke's East Side home, telling the
commissioner to come out and see
his shadow.
Then on February 13, tenants in-
vaded Governor C u o m o ' ~ budget
forum in Brooklyn. Anne Pa(>manick,
representing the Tenant Unity Coali-
tion, made a compelling presenta-
tion, complaining of Eimicke's re-
fusal to meet with tenant organiza-
tions, his advocacy of vacancy decon-
trol and Cuomo's failure to act on be-
half of tenants. Even though most
people in the room had come to the
forum on other issues, they warmly
applauded Pasmanick.
Cuomo was visibly angry but also
impressed and promised he would di-
rect Eimicke to meet with the Tenant
Unity Coalition.
The toast of the real estate industry
finally met with eight delegates from
the Tenant Unity Coalition on April
10. Eimicke tried to reassure the
group by talking about vacancy de-
control for apartments renting for
$1,000 per month or more. Perhaps
he was hoping to blunt tenant anger
as the November election ap-
proaches. Perhaps the vigor of tenant
protest has already caused Eimicke
to back off a bit: last summer it was
decontrol for apartments renting for
$300 and up. "I don't like sit-ins, I
don't like sing-ins, I don't like having
my home picketed," he stated, but he
pledged to meet with the group every
two months. Cuomo himself con-
tinues to refuse to meet with tenants.
Whatever the Cuomo administra-
tion may have in mind for the future
of tenant protection laws, a vigorous
and watchful tenant movement must
be ready to meet any threat. 0
Michael McKee is the Director of the
New York State Tenant and Neighbor-
hood Coalition.
,
CITY VIEWS

State Rates IIF"
as Rent Regulator
BY WILLIAM ROWEN
ON APRIL 1, 1984, THE STATE OF
New York took over the administra-
tion of all rent regulation. Prior to
that, the city and its landlords ran
rent control and rent stabilization
within the five boroughs. Outside, in
Westchester, Nassau and Rockland
counties where there was stabiliza-
tion, and in upstate localities with
remnants of old state rent control, the
state's Division of Housing and Com-
munity Renewal (DHCR) adminis-
tered.
Enforcing rent stabilization in the
the city was the duty of the landlord-
funded Conciliation and Appeals
Board. Over its 15-year existence, the
Board faced a growing burden of reg-
ulating more and more of the older,
pre-1947 decontrolled units. Together
with the city's more middle class,
post-1947 apartments, they num-
bered a million units when the legis-
lature finally put CAB out of its self-
inflicted misery
. CAB's era was a
mounting backlog of cases, chiefly
rent overcharge complaints, that
many tenants waited up to five years
to have resolved. Impertinence and
abuse were other hallmarks of CAB
administration that tenants encoun-
tered when calling for advice or their
case status.
The state takeover of administra-
tion and enforcement through the
DHCR was largely unplanned and
rudderless. The Cuomo administra-
tion delayed many months in creating
and appointing a deputy commis-
sioner as rent administration head.
When it finally did, the choice was
Manuel Mirabal, formerly with the
city's housing department, who had
no real experience in the com-
plexities of rent regulation, much less
rent stabilization itself. Even so,
many tenant advocates hoped the
state would be as a new broom,
sweeping away some of the inequities
and inadequacies characterizing
CAB's term.
Such hopes were dashed in short
order. Although the state tried to
maintain continuity in the transition,
giving CAB and city personnel au-
tomatic rights to transfer their jobs to
DHCR, it did not work. Many unit
chiefs of CAB left their posts in dis-
gust because of politicized, incompe-
tent management; others fled to the
private sector. Some of the best
people at the city's Housing Preserva-
tion and Development office of rent
control declined to switch over to
state employment on the theory that
going from the frying pan into the fire
was not a wise choice. Although the
new public information unit staff
treated the public with unusual po-
liteness in the first months-proba-
bly to counter the notorious rudeness
of the CAB - they soon reverted to
abusiveness.
Here's a quick assessment of DHCR
Rent Administration and those units
that give tenants the most difficulty.
Backlog Rent OverchargelThnant Ob-
jection Unit
All remaining cases from the CAB
backlog and unresolved Tenant Chal-
lenges to initial rent registration are
now being processed at the old CAB
office at 10 Columbus Circle in Man-
hattan. Estimates of leftover CAB
cases number in the tens of
thousands. Many overcharge and fair
market rent appeals cases that were
difficult for the CAB were "buried"
or "misplaced" to avoid dealing with
them. .
Evidence exists that DHCR is treat-
ing difficult cases the same way with
a few new twists. For example, DHCR
has recently begun sending out in-
timidating summary letters to ten-
ants, asking them if they.have resol-
ved their landlord disputes or
Councilm.mb.r Stanl.y Mich.l. j .... d by landlords:
Mich.ls comp/ain.d that the r.c.nt rent-cod. h.arings should b. r.conv.n.d wh.n th. cod.s are
r.wri".n into "plain English."
whether they wish to withdraw the
complaint, playing on the fears many
tenants have when they challenge
their landlords.
Many backlog cases are two to six
years old. DHCR wants to be rid of
them by any means possible since
they can be a political embarrassment
to the Cuomo Administration. The
older the case, the more likely a com-
plaining tenant will have trouble re-
solving it in her or his favor. A typical
overcharge or fair market appeal case
that is resolved awards $10,000-
30,000 to the winning tenant. So it
certainly pays for tenants to persist
. to the lucrative conclusion.
Legal Unit
This unit processes all current over-
charge and service reduction cases at
Gertz Plaza in Jamaica. Queens. Some
processing was being done at the
boroughs' various District Rent Of-
fices (DROs) but no longer. The DROs
sole remaining purpose appears to be
public information; it's a place ten-
ants can go to get complaint forms
and be counseled (often risky. at best,
so bad is the advice). DHCR's original
intent to decentralize rent adminis-
tration has been reversed to com-
pletely centralize it in a location en-
tirely inconvenient to the majority of
city tenants. Even the staff hates
going there. Gertz Plaza .(a property
developed by scandal-plagued
Michael Lazar) is the place all current
rent and service reduction com-
plaints must be filed, and where they
are processed.
PAR Unit
The PAR Unit is the administrative
review unit within DHCR where ten-
ants can file Petitions for Administra-
tive Review. This is an administrative
appeal (rather than judicial) process
that requires DHCR to reconsider de-
terminations by the processing units.
Such a petition (Form RAR-2) must
be filed within 35 days of the determi-
nation being appealed.
This unit has been swamped.
mainly by landlords. with petitions.
It is run - just as the CAB did its re-
consideration unit-like a U.S. Su-
preme Court, with excessively wordy
and convoluted opinions and a great
deal of delay. Some problems are due
to the poor quality of the determina-
tions being appealed. Others reflect
the uncertain and confusing policy
standards generally set for rent ad-
ministration. Since the end of 1985,
the unit has been issuing denials
based on bogus premises, just to
avoid missing the statutory 90-day
limit the agency has to come up with
an opinion. One such case involved
a tenant whose PAR was dismissed
because he had filed at 10 Columbus
Circle instead of Gertz although he
had filed before DHCR had moved the
PAR unit to Jamaica.
DHCR makes such denials sUt,'ect
to the right to refile, even thou it
has no authority to extend this ri t.
Compliance Unit
Also. located at Gertz Plaza, this
unit in practice does not seek com-
pliance for tenants; it stonewalls
them from getting whatever relief
they might have won from a com-
plaint. It acts as a review unit instead
of an enforcement mechanism, shift-
ing the burden of proof back on the
tenant after the tenant has prevailed
in the first place. It will not go after
the landlord who owes a tenant
money and will not penalize the land-
lord who has avoided repairs.
Litigation Unit
Located at Two World Thade Center,
this unit's caseload is five times what
it was in 1979. In Supreme Court,
DHCR is a l ~ o s t never ready on the
calendar date, knowing that the court
is never ready to default them. A com-
mon DHCR tactic to dispose of their
mountainous caseload is to misrepre-
sent to the court that "new" evidence
exists that justifies the granting of a
motion to remand the case to the
agency for further processing. Usu-
ally the court grants such motions,
being happy to clear their dockets.
Unfortunately for tenants, this is
often harmful because it allows
DHCR to reaffirm their original deter-
mination and place the tenant in the
position of suing all over again. Be-
cause landlords have financial means
to sue more readily than most ten-
ants, DHCR tends to decide issues
with a pro-landlord bias.
The state takeover of rent regula-
tion occurred in a context of impro-
per self-regulation by the landlord
Rent Stabilaztion Association and a
pattern of nonenforcement by the
Conciliation and Appeals Board. The
state legislature in 1983 did not hesi-
tate to adopt the law putting both of
these rogue bodies out of the rent reg-
ulation business. Everything pointed
in the direction of a remedial admin-
istration to undo the harm of the past.
The failure of Cuomo, who was
elected on a pro-tenant platform, and
his government to achieve this is a
betrayal of New York City's tenants.q
William Rowen is chair of the New
York State TImant and Neighborhood
Coalition.
Deputy Commissioner Mirabal takes the heat:
DHCR Commissioner William Emieke 'eft the April rent-code hearings just two hours after they
began.
Some Tips for Dealing vvith
the Rent Regulators
Tenants should never fail to
respond to a Division of Housing and
Community Renewal
communication, even if it is
pointless and insulting as many are.
Do not complain about the
abusiveness of the DHCR process at
the expense of the merits of your case
and the fastest possible
determination in your favor. Do not
agree to withdraw your case if your
landlord offers a rent rollback. The
New York State Tenant and
Neighborhood Coalition (NYSTNC)
has a fact sheet (No. 11) on how to
deal with such offers.
After years of waiting, a tenant can
be very unsure of the status of a
complaint, and completely confused
if they have filed more than one. The
best way to handle old complaints is
to notify DHCR at 10 Columbus
Circle that you wish to inspect the
entire file of each.of your cases. Write
to them, giving them a week or two
to grant you an appointment to go
there, and set aside a few hours. Take
a yellow pad for notes, and your
checkbook to pay 25 cents a page for
copies. Make a special effort to digest
the information on the "Examiner's
Report Sheet" inside the front cover
of the file folder. This will give a
chronological description of the
status of the case. Also keep a sharp
eye out for landlord submissions that
you never got. That is a breach of due
process.
Because DHCR refuses to
automatically indicate the legal rent
to tenants moving into stabilized .
apartments, every tenant who now
moves into an apartment should file
a Form RA-89 with DHCR to
determine the legality of the rent
being paid. Rent information on
registration statements annually
served on tenants by landlords
should not be taken at face value.
Similarly, every tenant who has
been denied repairs or services
should file one or both of Forms
RA-81 or RA-84, and make certain
that the box is checked that demands
a rent reduction to compensate for
the lost services. There is a separate
heat and hot water Form HHW-1.
DHCR will send the forms in the mail
on a telephone request to any District
Rent Office.ow.R.
REVIEWS
The Right Way to Write
a Community History
W.',.. Stili He,..: The Rise, Fall,
and Resurrection of the South
Bronx by Jill Jonnes; Atlantic
Monthly Press, 1986, illustrated,
$24.95.
BY LOIS HARR
IT'S DIFFICULT TO STAND IN THE
middle of something and think you
have an objective view of your cir-
cumstances. You can be ' over-
whelmed by events around you; you
may not see the forest for the trees
even though you're sure you do.
If you're lucky, you may come by
someone with an "objective" view
that confirms just what you were sure
you knew all along.
So it is with We're Still Here: The
Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of the
South Bronx by Jill Jonnes. For this
reviewer, who has lived and worked
in the Bronx her whole life, it is edify-
ing to see an outsider, who hopefully
is objective, come into our midst, re-
search fully that which we lived
throuAA and discover the story we
would have told ourselves.
During the 1960's and '70's, the
Bronx experienced a cataclysm of un-
paralleled devastation. Neighbor-
hoods disappeared and as Jonnes
states, "The term 'South Bronx' was
attached to each new neighborhood
stricken by the vicious cycle of pov-
erty, drugs, crime and then arson."
My family has lived in the Bronx
since the 1920's. It was a good place,
a place to aspire to. As a kid, my idea
of success was to live in an elevator
building on the Concourse. So it was
for generations before me. What a
beautiful place-nice rooms, parks,
space - not like the already over-
developed Manhattan. Bedroom com-
munities, almost the suburbs-that
was the Bronx.
What happened? If you lived here,
you know and if yoti didn't J o n n e ~ '
clear and careful research lays it out:
everything happened at once.
Nowhere did the political, economic
and social forces of those decades col-
lide as intensely and with such devas-
Housing Cind tenant organizing remain Coalition concerns: A "tab bad, tlte street." roll, in Poe
Pork last September.
tating results as in the Bronx. Black
and Hispanic influx and white flight;
the Cross Bronx Expressway and Co-
op City; poverty, and anti-poverty
programs; landlord greed, and arson;
drugs and crime - all these factors
and more came together in a few short
years and laid waste to miles and
miles of the Bronx. For those of us
watching the downward spiral to ob-
livion, it was clear no one thing
caused it.
If there is a main character through-
out the book it is the Bronx Democra-
tic machine, which Jonnes portrays
as intrinsically tied to the fortunes of
the borough. People needed jo,bs,
housing, money, a helping hand and
the machine provided. The only
thanks required was a ballot cast for
the Democratic ticket. In the Bronx's
declining years, the machine became
less able to provide for the folks as
old avenues of patronage were dis-
placed by new-fangled anti-poverty
programs. New actors, new power
brokers appeared on the scene from
outside the ranks of the regular
machine.
By the early 70's, the South Bronx
was no longer a place but a syndrome
that had begun to move into the
Northwest Bronx, rearing its ugly
head in the neighborhoods south of
Fordham Road.
In chapters entitled "The Next Part
of the South Bronx" and "We're Still
Here" Jonnes relates the story of the
Northwest Bronx Community and
Clergy Coalition. While rebuilding
had begun in fits and starts through-
out the South Bronx, it was here in
the Northwest Bronx that neighbo
hood people took up the fight of pre-
vention, preservation and improve-
ment.
Bishop Patrick Ahern, then Vicar
of the Northwest Bronx, is quoted by'
the author in tm early appeal for
funds to finance the NWBCCC: "If the
Bronx dies, then the hopes of a mil-
lion and a half people for justice and
a decent life, here and now, will die
with it. We're trying to stop that from
happening... The scope is to renew
the neighborhood of the Northwest
Bronx."
That renewal meant endless hours
of tenant organizing in city and pri-
vately-owned buildings; pickets and
demonstrations outside banks and
corporate offices; research and more
research; demands for improvements
in parks, sanitation, police, fire, high-
ways, employment and more.
And the amazing thing is that it
worked. Arson has been all but elimi-
nated. Abandonment is way down.
People are staying put. Parks have
been renovated. Fordham Plaza is
built. Streets have been repaved. As
Jonnes puts it, " ... the Coalition's sec-
ret was to persist doggedly in appa-
rently hopeless causes."
Just as the fall of the Bronx was due
to a host of causes, the resurrection
is due to many things coming to-
gether at once. People were deter-
mined not to be pushed away again.
Tenant organizing reached a signifi-
cant proportion of the housing stock
and the city responded to demands
for better services. Just as hope had
abandoned the borough, faith is
slowly and firmly being restored.
We're Still Heretells a wonderful
story. It tells how a seemingly irresis-
tible force met, if not a single immov-
able object, then thousands of people
who took a stand, who didn't move
but improved. It is the story of the
South Bronx and the Northwest
Bronx but more than that, it is a story
of ordinary people anywhere who
make a decision to take back control
over their own lives, to make a good
life for themselves, their families and
their neighbors.
I'm still here, too. I figure I will be
for quite a while.o
Lois Harr worked as a community or-
. ganizer at NWBCCC for seven years
and now edits its newspaper, Action.
Four years ago, she and her husband
bought back his grandfather's house
in the Bronx, making their daughter
the fourth generation to grow up
there.
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(212) 279-8300
Ask tor: Jean Carbonari
RESOURCES/EVENTS
CONFERENCE: Addres-
sing the homelessness and housing
crises: the Interfaith Assembl y on
Homelessness and Housing in coop-
e,ration with the Housing Justice Cam-
paign will conduct a day-long or-
ganizing conference on May 21. Be-
ginning at 9 a.m. at Riverside Church,
discussion will focus on emergency
shelters and shelter services, perma-
nent housing and other local empow-
erment strategies aQd the creation of
an equitable housing policy. The con-
ference will serve as a springboard
for loqbying and other legislative ac-
tions regarding New York City's
budgetary actions. For more informa-
tion call Marc Greenberg at (212)316-
3171. 0
ECONOMICS: Week-
long classes in economics for ac-
tivists and progressive educators will
be conducted by the Center for Popu-
lar Economics this summer. The two
sessions will be held from July 20-26
and August 3-9 at the Stoeleigh-Bur-
nham School in Breenfield, Mas-
sachusetts. Providing intensive train-
ing in economic analysis, the courses
will cover topics including un-
employment, inflation, international
economic problems, unions and
labor markets, the political economy
of racism and sexism and
Reaganomics. Tuition, room and
board are charged on a sliding-fee
ranging from $250 to $450. For
additional information contact Val-
erie LePere or Melissa Robbins at
(413)545-0743.0
VIDEO: A one-hour tele-
vision program featuring locally-pro-
duced videos on housing issues will
be aired on May 7. The show is part
of Paper Tiger T.V.'s' 10-part series
broadcast across the country via satel-
lite and seen on cable television pub-
lic access channels. Call (212)420-
9045 for more information.O
Mass Transit
Street Theater's latest production,
"House on Mayhem Street," will be
staged in various locations through-
out the city. The play takes place in
a city shelter for women survivors of
battering, sexual assault and landlord
harassment amI explores ways of
overcoming violence in our society.
The play will be staged on the
weekends of May 2-3, May 16-17 and
May 30-31. There will also be a
number of dates in June. For exact
locations and times, call (212)882-
2454 or (718)435-2955. 0
VICTIMS' ACTION: A lob-
bying effort will be conducted by the
Toxic Victims Access to Justice Cam-
paign at the State Capitol in Albany
on May 6. Asbestos victims, DES
daughters, tungsten carbide workers,
union members and other concerned
citizens will press legislators for a law
giving toxic victims a right to court
suits. Free transportation and ap-
pcintments with legislators will be
arranged. For more information call
(212)349-6460.0
RIGHTS: A four-part
videotape series on housing rights is
now available. Each tape addresses a
specific problem area including, how
to form a tenants' association, how to
go on a rent strike and how to use
housing court. The tapes can be bor-
rowed from many public libraries
throughout the city or purchased at
Citybooks, 1 Centre Street, New York,
NY 10007. The set costs $35 plus $2
postage. Call Citybooks (212)669-
8245 for details.o
PHOTOS: En Foco,
a community visual arts agency
based in the Bronx, is inaugurating a
new exhibition site with the photo-
graphs of Ricky Flores. The black and
white photo essay entitled "Ser Puer-
toriquenos" depicts a people in
search of their history and culture.
The exhibition can be seen Monday
to Friday through May 29 at the New
York Telephone Building, 2532 Grand
Concourse (near Fordham Road) , in
the Bronx. For additional information
call (212)584-7718.0

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from City Limits
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Ci Limits, 424 W. 33rd St., NY, NY 10001
WORKSHOP
ACTIVIST/ORGANIZER. Work for social change and earn a liv-
ing! Work with ACORN, the nation's largest grassroots community
organization. Organizer needed to work on campaign aimed at
changing bank policies discrimination in Brooklyn. Duties will
include work with the ACORN "squatters." Tenant organizer
needed to build a tenants union in city owned buildings in East
Brooklyn. Call for interviews, 718-789-5600. Salary: $150 and
up per week.
HOUSING ORGANIZER. Flatbush East Community Develop-
ment Corp. seeks experienced grass roots organizer to help
organize and provide assistance to tenant associations and to
provide technical assistance to qualified landlords for loan prog-
rams, etc. REQUIREMENTS: Night meetings. Good speaking,
writing skills, previous organizing experience, bilingual preferred:
French/English. SALARY: $14,000 to $15,000, good benefits.
Send resume to Flatbush East Community Development Corp.
Jay D. Small, Executive Director, 559 East 43rd Street, Brooklyn,
NY 11203, 718-629-4140.
DIRECTOR. Local Development Corporation on Lower East Side
seeks director to administer commercial revitalization contract
and oversee business improvement district plan. Other respon-
siblities include organizing board of directors meetings, liason
with merchants and city agencies, grant proposal writing, de-
velopment of complimentary project proposals, overall fiscal and
administrative management of organization. Background in
urban affairs or planning is preferred. Two years experience in
related field with administrative/supervisory background ideal.
Deadline: May 30, 1986. Available early summer. Send resume
and covering letter summarizing your strengths to: South Manhat-
tan Development Corporation, 233 East Broadway, New York,
NY 10002. Attention: Director. (No telephone calls please.)
PROJECT DIRECTOR/HOUSING SPECIALIST. New York Loft
Tenants, Inc., a non profit information clearinghouse serving loft
tenants (many of whom are artists), needs a strong com-
municator to coordinate and direct its activities. Our main objec-
tive is to help loft tenants maintain their unique form of housing.
RESPONSIBILITIES: Keeping abreast of NYC Loft Board, and
loft community by interacting with loft tenant groups, maintaining
printed materials and creating new resource materials for loft
tenants, including development of materials on rent stablization
rights and the city's building code-compliance process, and coor-
dination of weekly Housing Clinic held Tuesday from 6 to 8 pm.
REQUIREMENTS: Excellent verbal and writing skills, housing
background, ability to translate technical material into accessible
form for tenants, some ability to work with grants, must be a
conscientious self-starter and enjoy educating people. It is most
important that your primary interest is in preserving affordable
housing in NYC. SALARY: Starts at $17,000 (flexible hours).
. Send cover letter and resume to New York Loft Tenants, 198
Broadway, Room 1100, New York, NY 10038, 212-619-0889 .
. -------------_.- -_._-
The Campaign for Housing Justice, a community-based housing
coalition, needs an ADMINISTRATOR/COMMUNITY OR-
GANIZER. Responsibilities: providing educational opportunities
(forums, legal clinics, research); advocate for housing justice -
letter writing, participation in public meetings, support services
for people in crisis, lobbying; organizing newsletter; networking
of tenants and homeowners; grant writing and fundraising; super-
vising volunteers. QUALIFICATIONS; self-motivated, eager to
live and work in vibrant, diverse and changing community, flexi-
ble; willingness to learn political/legal system and tenants rights
and laws; community organizational skills; Spanish preferred but
not essential. SALARY: negotiable depending on experience.
Send resume to: Campaign for Housing Justice, PO Box 5106,
Hoboken NJ 07030.
City wide housing organization seeks applicant for staff position
with skills in the following areas: cost estimating, loan packaging
and processing, construction management and monitoring, ar-
chitectural drafting, scope writing and specifications. Spanish
speaking a plus. Salary and job description negotiable based
on experience. Send resumes to: UHAB, 1047 Amsterdam Av-
enue, New York, NY 10025. Attn: Mei Lan Wong.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: To address housing issues in North-
ern Manhattan. Bilingual in Spanish and English required. Sa/-
ary:$16,000. Send resume to: WHIC, 652 West 187 St. , New
York, NY 10033.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR. Implement and manage the Fulton
Street Commercial Revitalization Program in northeastern Brook-
lyn. Work with merchants on grant & loan applications. Prepare
and manage budget. File fiscal and program reports. QUALIFI-
CATIONS: Masters degree in planning or business or college
degree and four years of work experience. Strong writing and
communication skills, Spanish helpful. Send resume and writing
sample to: Cypress Hills Local Development Corp. 3176 Fulton
Street, Brooklyn, NY 11208.
TENANT ORGANIZER. Looking for a job you can believe in?
Met Council is seeking a new organizer to join its staff. If you or
someone you know is looking tor long-term meaningful work
building New York's largest tenant union, send a resume or give
us a call. We seek a creative and energetic person who is or-
ganized, does not mind long hours, has a strong commitment
to organizing, and wants more than just monetary reward.
Spanish speaking helpful, but not required. SEND RESUME TO:
Metropolitan Council on Housing, 198 Broadway, Room 905,
New York, NY 10038, attention Susan Radosh.

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