2007 Jan
2007 Jan Vol. 27, No. 1
Focus on...Management/Board Relations
Divine Profits
It’s no secret—in fact, it’s been a
problem for years: residential developers in Manhattan and other hot areas
like Downtown Brooklyn are running out of space.
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What Will 2007 Bring?
Mortgage financiers are gearing up for a different
lending landscape in 2007. To succeed in the coming year, lenders will need
to pay attention, look around and get in front of trends. Here are a
few trends we can already foresee:
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Education is Key
One of the major initiatives which will soon benefit
New York City’s co-op and condominium landscape is the ongoing effort
to certify the resident managers and superintendents that live and work in
city housing.
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Retrofit and Reduce
There is a tendency among many co-op boards, building managers and developers to consider “green” building technologies as extras—or as luxuries that have nothing to do with their need to reduce costs. Read More
Communication and Optimism
There was a time when many of the city’s key
resident management/superintendent associations didn’t communicate
much. The Manhattan Resident Managers Club, Inc., the Metropolitan Building
Managers of New York, the Scandinavian-American Building Managers Guild,
the Superintendents Technical Association (STA), the New York Building
Manager’s Association, and the Hibernia Provident Society got
together about as often as Donald Trump and Billy Crystal sit in bleacher
seats at Yankee Stadium, even though they share many of the same members.
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Answering Westchester's Questions
Westchester County is known for, among other things,
its grand, multi-million dollar mansions and historic homes found in its
posh communities such as Scarsdale, Bronxville and Brewster. Many of these
homes were built in the 1950s, when the economy was prosperous. That
decade, World War II veterans returned to the job market and started
families. To answer the need for more housing for these new families, many
high-rise apartments, single-family homes and duplexes were also built.
Westchester’s website, www.westchestergov.com, coins it as “a
new era of suburbanization” for the American family.
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Defending Against Discrimination Claims
In what may prove to be a significant victory for cooperative and condominium boards sued for housing discrimination, an appellate court recently applied the protection of the business judgment rule to a discrimination claim for disability accommodation. Read More
Melding Design with Comfort
The bathroom is one of the most used rooms in the
home—albeit in short intervals. We all have our own vision of
the ultimate bathroom, from natural light and optimal storage space, to
telephones, Jacuzzi baths and flat screen TVs. But until you’ve been
through the process, it’s hard to get a handle on just what goes into
a successful bathroom remodeling project.
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Taxing Questions
Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best: “In this
world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.”
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Working the Door
Forget Barbie dolls and dress up clothes—when
Janet Leon was a little girl, she probably would’ve preferred to have
a mini tool belt and set of screwdrivers. Growing up, she says she fondly
remembers shadowing her father, a machinist, around the garage, pointing
out his to-do list and helping him tinker with engines and fix-it projects.
She eagerly soaked up knowledge of tools, maintenance, machinery and
whatever else her dad wanted to teach her.
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Managing to Manage
Even the best-run buildings have their bad days, and
minor (sometimes not-so-minor) emergencies. In times like these,
it’s vital to have a capable, experienced manager at the helm who can
handle problems efficiently and minimize their duration and severity.
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A License to Build
One of the most important things that a co-op or condo
must take into consideration when hiring a contractor for a maintenance or
construction project is whether the service providers the building are
bringing in to do the work are properly licensed and insured. Contractors,
subcontractors, and project managers have are not only entrusted to get
their jobs done properly, but they have access to private property—so
it only makes sense to check the workers’ paperwork with as much
vigor as you check their references.
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I Can Manage
Co-op and condo buildings don’t run themselves.
Their owners and shareholders rely on board members to make important
decisions about the buildings they live in, and board members count on
their management companies to provide them with the information needed to
make smart decisions.
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Switching Management Companies
In a perfect world, the relationship between a
management company and the co-op or condo it serves would be harmonious,
with few—if any—bumps in the road. But this is New York City,
and if that vital relationship sours, your board could be faced with the
prospect of replacing your agent or finding a new management company.
Careful planning and thorough research will ensure that you make a smooth
transition from your former company to a new one.
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Filling the Bill
For most boards, the fees charged by their management
firms are just a fact of doing business. Aside from signing the initial
contract, most board members probably do not give much thought to how those
fees were initially determined, beyond the usual comparison-shopping that
goes on when choosing a firm. Perhaps a bit more scrutiny is applied to
determining the annual increases within the contract, but still, the fee
formula may seem closer to a financial alchemy rather than an exact science
transparent to all.
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