Thursday, January 31, 2008

No Heat in Parts of 122 on Tuesday, Jan 29th; Off-Hours Contact Procedure

As of today, Thursday, January 31, 2008, Management has confirmed that approximately half of 122 was without heat for much of the day and all of the night (residents in the B and H lines have confirmed this on the Yahoo Message Group) on Tuesday, January 29th.

At least one B-Line resident reported this problem to Security during the evening/early morning of Jan 29/30th and asked them to contact the building superintendents, Raphael Olive (122) and Juan Perez (191/UT).

Security reported to the residents that they had contacted Mr. Perez and relayed a message that "heat would come up," but Mr. Perez did not contact them directly and the heaters remained cold througout the night.

In the morning, the B-Line resident was finally able to reach Mr. Olive directly, who did respond promptly and professionally.

As of 10am Wednesday morning, however, there was still no heat and no response from Management.

Heat was restored later in the day, and Management provided the following statement:

The problem did not affect the entire building, but rather, half the building. The procedure is to call security for them to notify the super on call. You may call security at 718-834-0686. If the officer does not respond to the call, you may call back and speak to the supervisor, who is authorized to make outreach to the super. In this case it would have been Olive. In the morning Juan Perez identified the problem and made a mechanical adjustmentl. Afterwards he checked the computer settings and found the real issue and made the adjustment. All has been back to normal since yesterday mid-morning.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Package Room Confusion -- What's Next??

Over the month, the UT Yahoo Group exchanged an especially lengthy series of messages about packages being received, and residents not being informed adequately.

In particular, problems arise when more than one package arrives before the resident is able to pick them up. With the current "key" system, there is no way to inform the resident that there is more than one package.

As a brief refresher for new residents: we didn't always have a package room. This is a fairly new development that was implemented about two or three years ago. In earlier years, packages were often left at residents' doorsteps -- which resulted in occasional thefts and other inconveniences.

So the package room was a very welcome improvement. But it is not without flaws.

When it was first created, residents were notified of packages with a sticky label slapped on their mailbox. Now, this worked well because there was a spot on the label where the guard could indicate how many packages were waiting.

But unfortunately it also created a lot of glue and shredded label messes on our nice then-new mailboxes. And it probably got unnecessarily expensive, as new labels always had to be ordered.

So then they posted a sheet next to the mailboxes (which now holds various notice signs), that looked a little like a week-calendar grid. If a package came for you, the guard would write your apartment under the day that the package came.

Now, this was didn't leave behind messy glue, but it created a huge mess in the package room as we often forgot to check the sign, or didn't look carefully at every apartment written on it... or if the guard forgot to write in your apartment... or if the sheet were removed at the end of the week, before you were able to check.

In both of these systems, however, every package was written into the logbook, and upon pickup the resident had to sign the entry indicating his/her package(s).

So now we have keys: if you get a package, security logs it and puts a dummy key in your mailbox. You give him/her the key, sign the logbook and get your package.

Now I find this is a huge improvement in many ways, but it also has its share of problems.

First, keys go missing. Many of us absent-mindedly take the keys and forget to bring them back (pleading guilty, here... :-< ).

Then the guard has to scan the logbook for the entry, which isn't always easy. But the biggest problem of all occurs when you have more than one package -- but you only have one key.

One member of the Yahoo Group reported having received a package, but there was no entry in the logbook. Another found no key in her mailbox although she knew a package had arrived that day; turned out the package was there, but the keys were all gone! Others reported having picked up a package only to learn that a second had been sitting in the room for weeks.

So, how do we fix this?

One very good suggestion was to color-code the keys: Say, a red key could indicate you have one package, and a white one would indicate more than one, so at least the guard would know to look for more.

Another member suggested better organization for the package room, with perhaps cubbies or dividers for apartment ranges on the top shelf (larger packages could still go on the floor).

Another suggested using carbon-copy slips, similar to those used for receipts or phone messages -- this would create a slip for the resident and a permanent record, precluding the need for the logbook.

I believe this would be the ideal solution -- if security were able to access our mailboxes, which they aren't, and which is probably why this has become such a problem.

The color-coded keys is also a good solution -- although residents would have to remember not to remove the keys until they are ready to pick up the package.

One other resident on the Group mentioned an important side-issue: Whatever solution we come up with should not overtax the security guards as they are not doormen, and have a lesser payscale and benefits than doormen.

That being said, all creative thoughts are welcome!!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Wishlist: Suggestions from Yahoo Group to Improve Life at UT

In October 2007, the UT Yahoo Group began to come up with many good suggestions to improve our community. Among them are:
  • Install card swipers to enter building from ramp at back of 191 & 122 - This suggestion was submitted to and approved by Management, and now swipers are present at the ramp entrances to both buildings, although only 191's swiper is currently working. Management says they are "waiting for a missing piece" for the 122 swiper and that residents will be notfied when it is online.
  • Improve lighting in back of 191 & 122 - Although the parking lot area is fairly secure, the lighting should be enhanced.
  • Repair sidewalk in front of 175 - An overgrown tree root has damaged the sidewalk in front of 175.
  • Create an Emergency Contact List - This would be an email and/or cell phone text message list to be used to notify residents ONLY in the event of an emergency such as fire, terrorism, local emergency/danger, or any threat to the community's safety.
  • Create a fire safety/evacuation plan - This could be an annual or semi-annual fire drill to ensure the smooth evacuation of all buildings.
  • Reduce compactor room odor - The compactor rooms on some floors tend to have a bad odor due in part to poorly sealed litter and unwashed containers in the recycling bin. I'm not sure how this could be improved, other than advising residents to be more careful with their trash.
  • Allow a parking lot drop-off system - Create a limited-time parking area for pick-ups and drop-offs.
  • Create roofdecks - Investigate the pros and cons of building and maintaining roofdecks.
  • Enhance gym equipment - Some of the cardio equipment could be replaced with a proper hip flexor and sit-up bench.
  • Draft and post committee meeting minutes - Since many residents are unable to attend committee meetings, the Board has agreed to ask at the beginning of committee meetings if any attendees would like to draft minutes. Those minutes are posted on the Yahoo group and on this blog.

For a more detailed and updated list of the above, go to http://kaganville.com/ut/ut_wishlist.htm.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The 80/20 Rule: How Will Selling Air Rights Affect UT's Taxes

This issue came up rececently on the UT Yahoo Message Board, and one of the members kindly posted the below article, which states, among other things, that a co-op will still qualify for cooperative status "if 80 percent or more of the total square footage of the property is used or available for use by tenant-shareholders
for residential purposes."

Please read the article for full details:

BREAKING NEWS

Late-Breaking News Exclusive
The End of 80/20?

by Bill Morris

For New York City's co-ops, the year-end holidays brought a golden
gift from a most unlikely source: the subprime mortgage crisis.

On December 20, President George W. Bush signed the Mortgage
Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 (also known as HR 3648) into law,
praising its mechanisms for offering relief to strapped homeowners who
are being squeezed by taxes and fluctuating mortgage rates.

But during the signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room at the White
House, Bush neglected to mention a sidelight of the law that will
reconfigure one of the most durable building blocks in the New York
co-op world, the so-called 80/20 rule.

Since the enactment of Section 216 of the Internal Revenue Code in
1942, a property could qualify for cooperative status – and
shareholders could deduct real estate taxes and mortgage interest
payments from their taxable income – if the property received 80
percent or more of its income from residential shareholders and no
more than 20 percent of its income from other sources, including
commercial tenants.

The old 80/20 rule remains in place under HR 3648, which goes into
effect for the 2007 tax year. But there are now two additional ways
for a property to qualify for co-op status and the attendant tax
breaks. The first is if 80 percent or more of the total square footage
of the property is used or available for use by tenant-shareholders
for residential purposes. The second is if 90 percent or more of
expenditures are for the benefit of tenant-shareholders.

"This is a major change," says Joel E. Miller, a veteran co-op and
condo attorney from Queens who kept a close eye on HR 3648 as it
sailed through Congress. In the House of Representatives, where New
York's Rep. Charles Rangel was a co-sponsor, the measure passed by a
vote of 386-27; in the Senate, where Sen. Charles Schumer was a
sponsor, it passed by unanimous consent, an indication of Washington's
sensitivity to the political aftershocks of the subprime mortgage crisis.

"Many co-ops will have no trouble meeting the new square-footage or
expenditure tests," Miller says. "And now the co-op could charge any
rent they wanted to because there's no limit on outside income. Which
is a big change."

While many co-ops could see a windfall from rising commercial rents,
potential losers in this brave new world are the small army of co-op
lawyers who have worked hard, and sometimes creatively, to protect
their clients' tax-exempt status under the 80/20 rule. In fact, Miller
says, one distraught colleague phoned him the day Bush signed the bill
into law, lamenting that it would drive him out of business.

"Personally I'm relieved," Miller says, "because what we were doing to
qualify co-ops under 80/20 were things that might be challenged by the
I.R.S. Now, if co-ops can pass one of the other two tests, they're not
going to need a lawyer to help them comply with 80/20."

But that doesn't mean the demand for co-op attorneys is likely to
evaporate, as Miller sees it. "Right now, most New York co-ops are not
paying taxes on their outside income," he says. "Now that it's
unlimited, the I.R.S. might start taking a closer look at that income.
It could be considered as dividends by the I.R.S."

Another person who's pleased with the new law is Mary Ann Rothman,
executive director of the Council of New York Co-operatives &
Condominiums, which actively lobbied for passage of the bill. "I'm
elated," says Rothman. "Many low-income co-ops were put together with
commercial tenants as a way of providing services and keeping
shareholder costs down. This new law will allow co-ops to realize
additional commercial rent. It's probably not a happy moment for
commercial tenants, but it's a happy moment for co-ops."

While it's too early to know how many co-ops will experience a
financial windfall from the new law, it's safe to say that life will
be simpler for just about everyone. Anthony Wolff, who has been board
president of the 55-unit co-op at 223-231 West 21st Street for the
past quarter century, welcomes the prospect of not having to jump
through the old 80/20 hoops.

"We used to sort of skirt it [the 80-20 rule] because we had a fair
amount of what we call 'bad income' -– two rental apartments we bought
from the sponsor, and a doctor's office in the basement," Wolff says.
"'Good income' meant maintenance income. We always added to that any
money the co-op took in from shareholders – laundries, late fees,
storage fees, the one percent flip tax – to bolster our 'good income'
and make sure we complied with 80-20. Now we don't have to do that.
This new law is going to get rid of that exercise in sophistry."

It's an exercise Wolff says he will not miss. It's safe to say he's
not alone.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Interesting 1989 NY Times Article About UT Co-Op Conversion

One of the members of the University Towers Yahoo Group posted a very interesting New York Times article about the history of our fair co-op.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Happy 2008

OK, so it's been a while since I've posted, mainly because I have been wondering if continuing this blog is necessary in light of lively activity on the yahoo group.

Since the messages are limited to "members only," one possible function an external blog might have is to digest and comment on some of the conversations that have been going on. I'll pitch that to the group and see what they say.

Another issue is time, or lack thereof. I ended up being extremely busy with work and dance performances and rehearsals from early October through mid-December. Plus, I was attacked by some kids at Ingersoll houses in mid-November, which impaired my ability to function normally.

The injury itself wasn't so bad (see reposting of my initial note to the Yahoo group below), but perhaps because it brought back a lot of painful memories of my being abused -- physically and psychologically -- during my middle school years, which is exactly the age of the kids who attacked me.

I thought I'd dealt with a lot of that stuff, but apparently not, as I had frequent repetitive anxiety, which left me barely able to concentrate on my necessary obligations.

Anyway. I'm better now, mostly.

Below is the posting from mid-November.

*******

Not to alarm anyone too much, but I wanted to let all of you know --just in case....Last Saturday (11/17), at about 7:15pm, while I was walking along the Navy Street bike path towards the B61 bus stop, a group of kids on the pedestrian overpass threw what may have been a bottle at me.

I felt the object shatter against my head and heard them yell, "Whiteb**tch!!" and laugh when I looked back at them.

I stumbled away too quickly to get a look at the fragments on the ground and called 911 immediately and told them that I had been attacked by young people who were throwing objects down at passersby.

I felt blood in my hair and realized that my scalp had a large gash in it and asked for an ambulance.

Police cars and an ambulance showed up at the bus stop at Park and Navy within 5 minutes. I explained the incident to an officer, who did not give me his name, though I gave him my information.

He asked what had hit me, and I didn't know because I wanted to getaway. But I said he could probably still find pieces of it on the street. He did not give any indication that he was going to investigate the matter further.

Anyway, the EMT took me to the Brooklyn Hospital ER where the laceration was stapled together.

Healthwise, I'm OK at this point -- though I'm still pretty shaken up about this incident, and am hoping that this group of kids hasn't taken up the hobby of using cars, bikers, pedestrians, etc. as target practice.

I had hoped that I'd learn more about whether or not the police found these kids and at least talked to them, but when I called the 88th Precinct today, I learned that no crime report had even been created for this assault!!

There was only an "Aided Card" (#1187), which simply showed that I had been injured and aided by EMT. In other words, I might have just tripped and fallen, as far as the City is concerned.

Are any of you aware of any similar attacks of this nature? Has any of you reported an attack or other criminal incident only to find that it was not reported as such by the 88th Precinct?

I'm going to continue to investigate with the Precinct detectives; I think it's very important that the crime rate not be kept artificially low, because lower numbers will inevitably mean fewer officers.

I've also sent a note to Tish James... perhaps at the very least,they can secure the bridge a bit more.

Anyway... please let me know your thoughts.
********
My neighbors posted many kind responses, and while I did follow up with the 88th Precinct, their stonewalling tactics left me too demoralized to continue. But the issue is hardly dead, and I will get that report number!