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News

Broad accommodation given to service and assistance animals in settlement of federal dogsuit

dogsuit settlement
Click for full PDF.

The federal lawsuit against East River Housing has been settled, granting two cooperators the right to have a service or assistance animal, and opening a broad exception to any cooperator who can demonstrate the need for a similar four-legged companion.

The coop has agreed to a new “Reasonable Accommodation Policy” that directs management to commit to “granting reasonable accommodations to its rules, policies, practices, or services when such accommodations may be necessary to afford people with disabilities an equal opportunity to use and enjoy their dwellings, as required by federal, state and local law.”

As part of that new policy, assistance animals are allowed for any cooperator who can show that such an animal “alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person’s disability.” This includes emotional support, and may be supported by any health professional, “including, but not limited to, doctors, physician assistants, psychiatrists, psychologists, or social workers.”

Notably, the new policy makes clear, “While it is East River’s policy to not allow any pets at East River, service or assistance animals are not pets.”

The coop may request that a cooperator choose the smallest animal possible, but may not impose any size limit on service or assistance animals.

As previously reported, the settlement also includes $85,000 compensation to two cooperators, plus an additional $5,400 credit for maintenance and late fees.

You can read the full settlement here.

News

Do you love dogs? Do you hate dogs? Pick a side on June 1

love-hate

No topic ignites cooperators’ blood pressure like dogs. Love them, hate them, people have very strong feelings about whether dogs belong in our coop, and raising the topic at any annual meeting or meet-the-candidates night is a guaranteed show-stopper.

But being afraid to talk about something doesn’t make it go away. And over the last few years legal battles about dogs at East River have cost the coop over $1.2 million and made us the target of a federal anti-discrimination lawsuit. It’s time now to decide what pet policy is in the coop’s best interest, and the most effective way to enforce that policy.

Cooperatively Yours is hosting an open meeting for all cooperators on Monday, June 1 in the community room at 7:00 pm. The goal of this working session will be to develop two policy proposals that can be presented to all shareholders for a vote. Given the cost involved, this is a conversation all of us should be a part of.

News

Who’s next?

The emergency repair work in building 4 has left some cooperators wondering whether it’s an isolated incident or a cry for help from our 60-year-old infrastructure.

Is building 2 next?

Cracked concrete exposing re-bar.
Cracked concrete exposing re-bar.
A chunk of loose concrete.
A chunk of loose concrete.
Sheet metal covering the floor.
Sheet metal covering the floor.

The laundry room in building 2 now has sheet metal covering a large corner of the floor under the bulletin board. Has some excavation been done to test the sewer pipes or the integrity of the concrete floor?

And what about the broken concrete and exposed re-bar supporting the washing machines? That’s been there for a long time, but now all these cracks start to look more ominous.

Directors and management should make an effort right away to address the huge cost of repairs in building 4, assess the structural integrity of the other three buildings, and reassure cooperators that it’s safe to do their laundry.

News

Is East River starting to show its age?

old pipes

When sewer pipes enter their seventh decade of use, this is what they look like.

A view of the inside of building 4's laundry room.
A view of the inside of building 4’s laundry room.

The question is now, can preventative maintenance in the other three buildings save money in the long run? Or is sitting back and waiting for another sink hole to open up our only real option?

Because if the sewer pipes look like this under building 4, they probably don’t look much different under buildings 1, 2, and 3.

Who’s next?

The strategy at East River for years has been to keep maintenance as low as possible. That’s an admirable goal, keeping this corner of Manhattan livable and affordable for families old and new. The cost of major upgrades and repairs — like the boiler room and local law 11 facade work — has been added to our underlying mortgage through interest-only loans in order to protect current cooperators from higher monthly fees and assessments. (This is a not uncommon strategy.)

Recently it was revealed that the coop is seeking a $5 million line of credit for anticipated repairs and maintenance, so there’s no indication that the current board has any interest in changing course.

The coop also maintains no reserve fund for unanticipated repairs, and has not conducted any study of the costs of future repairs and maintenance. Which means it should not actually be a surprise when the 60-year-old laundry room turns into a money pit.

Earlier this week, management emailed an update to cooperators in building 4 with apologies for the inconvenience, closing with: “This job has been very difficult and very hard to estimate because we did not know what we would find when we started digging.”

You can say that again. And again and again.

News

Memo: From bad to worse in building 4 laundry room

Earlier this week, the laundry room in building 4 (sections K, L, and M) was closed due to an underground leak. A notice said that cooperators should expect the room to be closed for the week. This afternoon, management sent an email to cooperators in building 4 to say that the work needed is more extensive than originally anticipated:

April 30, 2015

FROM: HAROLD JACOB, GENERAL MANAGER

RE: LAUNDRY ROOM SHUTDOWN UPDATE
WATER SHUTDOWN NEEDED ON 5/5/15

Dear East River Cooperators:

Last week I sent out a memo in which I notified you that the laundry will be closed for one week because the main 15″ drain line was cracked inside and outside the building. When we dug up the line inside the building we found that all six drain lines in the laundry room and in the floor drains were broken.

These lines are connected to the washing machines and the sinks of the apartments above, so we had to dig up the entire laundry room to replace all of them. In the meantime, you can use the laundry rooms in other buildings. The job went from one leak to nine leaks. These pipes are around 60 years old.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to reopen the laundry room for at least another two weeks because after having repaired the pipes we must replace all the sand, pour the concrete and wait for the concrete to dry.

The building will also need a full water shutdown on Tuesday, May 5, from 8:30A.M. to 8:30P.M., because we must empty the drain lines before we replace them.

I am sorry for this major inconvenience but I could have not anticipated what the problem would be until we exposed each of the lines. I want to make sure that we will not have to revisit the issue. Therefore, all the underground lines must be replaced.

Again, I am truly sorry.

If I may add just a bit of editorializing:

A burst pipe is no one’s fault, and it’s not uncommon, in the course of fixing one problem, to uncover more problems that need to be addressed. But to say that no one could have anticipated the nature of the problem is odd when the problem was just identified two paragraphs above: “These pipes are around 60 years old.”

The coop’s annual financial report routinely includes a note by the auditors that East River has not conducted any study of the costs of future repairs and replacements. When asked specifically at last year’s annual meeting about the buildings’ elevators and roofs (which are beyond their expected lifecycle already) and the 60-year-old plumbing, General Manager Harold Jacob answered that he anticipated nothing beyond normal upkeep over the next 10 years.

And early this month we learned that the coop is now seeking a $5 million line of credit for “anticipated repairs and maintenance.”

So what is anticipated? What can’t be anticipated? I can’t keep track, can you?

Maybe a study of the costs of future repairs and replacement isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Update, with photos:

Construction vehicles behind building 4.
Construction vehicles behind building 4.
Laundry room in building 4 is closed.
Laundry room in building 4 is closed.
News

Coop seeks $5 million line of credit for repairs and maintenance

A public notice that East River Housing is seeking to refinance its debt — first brought to our attention in the board’s newsletter last month — indicates that the coop will seek an additional $5 million line of credit for “anticipated repairs and maintenance.”

The coop’s annual financial report routinely includes a note by the auditors that East River has not conducted any study of the costs of future repairs and replacements. At last year’s annual meeting, General Manager Harold Jacob was asked about upcoming expenses and answered that he anticipated nothing beyond normal upkeep. So either something has come up in the meantime to warrant $5 million, or the money is expected to be needed for our operating budget.

The coop’s last refinancing was in 2012. At the time, the coop consolidated $15 million in existing debt and added $10 million for three major projects: the boiler upgrade, conversion from high pressure to low pressure, and local law 11 facade repairs. The boiler upgrade cost $3.5 million, local law 11 cost $2.6 million, and the low pressure conversion never happened. Of the remaining $3.9 million, $1.5 million was used to pay down our debt, and $2.4 million was held (accounting for most of the $3 million cash on hand as of June 30, 2014).

The 2012 mortgage was interest-only, meaning that the $1.5 million pay-down was the only money put towards the mortgage’s principal.

The coop’s strategy seems to be to keep maintenance costs down and avoid assessments by taking advantage of low interest rates and increasing our debt by more than 20%. That’s good news for those of us who don’t want to see our monthly expenses go up, but bad news for those of us planning to still be here a decade from now when rates won’t be so favorable and the cycle of borrowing breaks.

The board needs to shed some light on their strategy — and allow for a debate on its pros and cons — with a mid-year Q&A on the coop’s finances.

News

East River still unprepared for legal e-waste disposal

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East River Coop remains unprepared to comply with a state law passed in 2010 that prohibits curbside disposal of electronic equipment. As of January 1, 2015, electronics such as televisions, computers, keyboards, DVD players, and personal digital music players were no loner permitted to be disposed of with regular curbside trash, yet the coop has no system in place to follow these regulations.

After a 3-month grace period, New York City is set to start imposing fines on April 1.

e-waste 577 Grand

Hillman Coop last year adopted a NYC’s e-cycleNYC program, which is free for residential buildings with 10 or more apartments. Special containers for electronic waste are provided and proper pickup is arranged by the city.

Even though East River and Hillman share management and maintenance, East River is not set up to dispose of electronic waste in a legal manner.

I’ve had some dialogue about this with Assistant General Manager Shulie Wollman. Just after the new year deadline I was told “We are trying to get these containers for East River, as well.”

This week, with April 1 fines looming, Mr. Wollman wrote me, “We received paperwork from the City and will be joining their e-waste program similar to what we are doing at Hillman.”

News

Update on East River storm surge protection

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Thanks to cooperator Susan Levinson for attending last week’s community meeting and providing us with her notes for this post.

The federal government is responding to Sandy with a bag of cash that in the next few years will transform East River Park. The East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR) — or the Big U, or the Dryline — will reshape the landscape of the waterfront in order to stop any future storm surge from damaging property and casting lower Manhattan in darkness as happened in October 2012.

bridging-berm-r-800x0Last Thursday and Monday, two community forums were held to discuss the project. Representatives from the mayor’s office, the Parks Department, and the Department of Design and Construction gave presentations and answered questions (along with Cantonese, Mandarin, and Spanish interpreters).

The project area is 23rd Street to Montgomery and is intended to protect naturally low-lying areas of the East Village and Lower East Side, as well as, crucially, the Con Ed station at 14th. For areas west of Montgomery, similar plans are expected later this year, and Mayor de Blasio has announced that city funds will be made available to areas outside the ESCR.

The goal is to protect lower Manhattan from floods without walling the waterfront off from the city. Landscaped berms will be constructed between the East River Park playing fields and the FDR. Imagine rolling hills that complement the park but are tall enough to keep the river from spilling over during a storm. (Watch this concept video.)

Not every stretch of the waterfront has the width to accommodate a full berm, notably right around Con Ed. In some places a simpler flood wall will be built, and in others a deployable surge barrier can be installed, though a berm, it was explained, is the most effective protection.

Several studies of the area have already been completed, including tree inventory, bridge inspection, and underwater structural survey of the waterfront. A preliminary design is expected to be completed by October 2015. The goal is to begin construction by mid-2017 with construction lasting 2-4 years.

News

Coop pays out $85,000 to settle federal dogsuit

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The New York Post reports this morning that a settlement has been reached in the federal lawsuit against East River Housing.

This dog is not allowed, but others are.
This dog is not allowed, but others are.
Two cooperators, Amy Eisenberg and Steven Gilbert, will be paid a total of $85,000 for legal fees and be allowed to keep their service pets. The third cooperator, Stephanie Aaron, has one year to find a new home for her dog or find a new place to live.

The federal suit was filed in December 2013 on behalf of these three cooperators who claimed that they were denied appropriate accommodation for their disabilities; the coop’s position had been that since cooperators had not sought approval for their service animals prior to obtaining the pets that they were in breach of their leases.

News

Community room demolition begins despite concerns

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Demolition has begun in the community room, despite cooperators’ wishes that the project be delayed for more input.

The $73,000 project was approved by the board over objections from the house committee. Cooperatively Yours held a working session last week to get ideas for the room’s design as well as the policies that govern its use. A quick survey of cooperators showed support for the basic project outline but also concern for the lack of resident input.

Those ideas and concerns were forwarded to board members — including Larry Goldman who has taken the lead on this project — but have been met with no response except the sound of demolition.