2- Doubletalk: <\/strong>The myth of \u201chelping” affordable housing and its underlying agenda \u2014 the creation of 200,000 affordable units<\/strong><\/p>\n 3- Foxes in the henhouse: How s<\/strong>upport services for both subsidized housing and buildings that have agreements with the City have turned predatory<\/strong><\/p>\n 4- The highest bidder: <\/strong>Selling Social Housing to developers (Staten Island)<\/strong><\/p>\n 5- Illusion versus Truth: <\/strong>The promise of new affordable housing in new developments is, in reality, a reduction of Rent-Stabilized Units <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1- The Grab: Appropriating private homes (<\/strong>HDFC coops)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The City, through its housing agency HPD (Department of Housing Preservation and Development), controls to a certain degree subsidized housing, housing programs and buildings that have agreements with the City such as the Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) cooperatives. Lately the value of real estate in areas where most of these HDFC buildings are located has increased hugely. While the City has full control over social housing it does not have much control over HDFC Cooperatives, a model of housing designed to be self-sustaining and free from control or supervision by the City once it has been re-constituted from a rent-stabilized building into a cooperative.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An HDFC Coop is a coop created by a disposition program that began in the 1980s, a transaction between the City and its citizens. It saw the transformation of rent-stabilized buildings that, having been neglected by landlords and rejected by banks, were sold to their tenants, thus becoming privately-owned cooperatives. The new owners\/shareholders slowly restored their buildings to health and paid fees and taxes to the City.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Office of the Mayor and HPD (Housing Preservation and Development – NYC.gov<\/a>) have sent a proposed ACT Bill to Albany, its purpose to amend the Private Housing Finance Law, in relation to Assets and supervision of HDFC: Housing Development Funds Corporation (\u201817HPD#1). At the same time they have been trying to 1) impose a Regulatory Agreement on HDFC coops and 2) pass a bill that revokes a tax exemption unless owners\/shareholders sign the agreement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This Regulatory Agreement by the City\/HPD for the Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) contains different anomalies including a threat to take away a tax exemption that doesn\u2019t expire until 2029, taking ownership away from shareholders by introducing a monitor who must approve sales, by changing income limits, by changing leasing conditions that are already determined by a coop’s incorporation by-laws, by introducing flat flip taxes that are currently decided by the Board of Directors, and by introducing two types of shares into a building. Now the current proposed Albany ACT legislation goes further by devaluing the private property that shareholders lawfully purchased, own, and maintain. With the current legislation HPD will be able to remove a board of directors, set different income-limit requirements and flip taxes, approve the sales of shares, change the definition of low-income for new residents, and lower the sales price of every apartment.\u00a0\u00a0 Those who bought under long-standing rules, suddenly see their equity evaporate. Without warning or democratic process, the City wishes to change the model of HDFC housing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you look at the population in HDFCs you will see that a huge percentage are entrepreneurs and professionals who invested in and renovated their buildings and apartments. HDFC buildings were off-loaded by the City because they were crumbling and the City didn’t want to deal with them. They were not created as affordable housing because all New York was affordable, it just wasn\u2019t safe. HDFCs shareholders made communities safer and increased property values. Now that their properties are very valuable, the city wants then back!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The use of the term \u201clow income\u201d in the ACT Bill uses the common understanding of low income to mean \u201cpeople who make little money,\u201d and this is different from the legal definition of “low income,\u201d which in current law means \u201cthose who cannot afford a house at market rate.\u201d This amendment attempts to legislate a change the HDFC definition of low income: from a legal meaning to the common meaning. But the HDFC model was not created for those who make little money; being a corporation, the shareholders have to be able to pay bills, to invest in their property, to cover repairs, and to keep their buildings up to ever-changing NYC codes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Both this proposed ACT Bill and the proposed Regulatory Agreement will not expand anything. They are not positive but negative. They are about taking away rights, not about giving assistance. They impose and coerce. The Summary reads,\u201cThis new section will impose restrictions . . .\u201d Furthermore, the ACT Bill and the proposed Regulatory Agreement were done without consulting those who would suffer under them: HDFC shareholders. The language and the content of this proposal is punitive (fees and fines are introduced to the HDFCs shareholders, board of directors removed without clear criteria). Instead of talking to HDFC shareholders so that they understand how these buildings run, what their challenges are, and how the City and HDFC shareholders can move forward with a win-win vision, the Mayor and HPD are strategizing without transparency, attempting to undercut HDFC shareholders with top-down legislation. The role of the government in a democracy is to work in favor of the individual, to strengthen communities, and not to impose, force and dictate.<\/p>\n The questions are: Why this? And why now?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2- Doubletalk: <\/strong>The myth of \u201chelping” affordable housing and its underlying agenda \u2014 the creation of 200,000 affordable units<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mayor de Blasio built his campaign on a number of promises and one of them was a vow to create more affordable housing either by building or preserving housing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Mayor has talked about \u201cpreserving affordability.\u201d The Mayor and HPD have focused on HDFC apartments, approximately 30,000 in NYC. The Mayor is trying to shape HDFCs into affordable housing and win points for his reelection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How have HPD and the Mayor gone about this? This have made the argument:<\/p>\n With rental properties, rents can be frozen. A way to hold prices low on privately-owned buildings is to control the price of future sales. HDFCs, although owned by their shareholders, do have agreements with the City regarding income limits on those who buy into an HDFC coop. But there is no limit — and there never was a limit — on the price of a sale.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Mayor’s desire to cap sales prices on any NYC dwellings he can may look good on paper but it is also a violation of the right to private property.\u00a0\u00a0 HDFCs coops make all decisions on sales and flip taxes, per their by-laws. The Mayor\/HPD has determined that they will simply write legislation that undermines or circumvents HDFC by-laws and imposes a low cap on what an HDFC apartment can be sold for. The Mayor\/HPD mean to change the model of the HDFC from self-governing private property to government-controlled public housing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By imposing punitive and financially subversive new regulations on HDFC buildings and their owners, the Mayor\/HPD will cause buildings to fail, monthly maintenance to skyrocket, and middle-class and lower-middle-class shareholders to sell. The Mayor and HPD are not \u201cpreserving\u201d affordability so much as \u201cmoving\u201d it. Since HPD will have jurisdiction to adjust the cap of the sale price depending on the apartment there is room for preferential treatment and profiling. Empty of old owners, these buildings can then be handed over to developers or to those who are lucky enough to win the HPD\/Bill de Blasio lottery. The \u201cunits\u201d will change hands but no new units will be built.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is not the creation of new housing (no new homes for low income are being built here) but merely a numbers game (the old are counted as new.) There is no new generation of goods. As a result, healthy HDFCs and the well-being of their shareholders are destroyed so that the Mayor and HPD can say they succeeded with their numbers. The proposed Regulatory Agreement and the ACT Bill amendment of article XI or Private Housing Law will be instrumental to achieving this goal.<\/p>\n The Real Deal<\/p>\n February 27, 2017 12:00P<\/p>\n De Blasio wants monitors to oversee 1,200 privately-owned co-ops<\/strong><\/p>\n De Blasio wants monitors to oversee 1,200 privately-owned co-ops<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"image001\"](\"http:\/\/fundacionmosis.com\/CivicGaps\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/image001.jpg\")
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