One of the most challenging projects a building can face is a switch to electricity submetering. But it's also an opportunity for co-op shareholders and condo unit-owners to conserve energy and save money. Read More »

Nov. 17, 2008 — In 1988, I arrived home one unassuming Friday evening to find an envelope by my apartment door containing what was later identified as "the black book." My 75-unit rent-stabilized building was converting into a co-op. I had no idea how dramatically my life was about to change and how active and involved I would soon become in my property. Read More »

Nov. 14, 2008 — Two co-ops in Queens are learning the hard way that a construction project's removal of underground water can cause millions of dollars in damages, insurance claims and potential lawsuits — and that the city, which allowed this, largely doesn't care. Read More »

Whether or not to allow smokers in your building is the next hot issue confronting co-op and condo boards. How difficult is it to implement a ban? Should you do it at your property? And what are the short- and long-term consequences for resales at your building and the overall quality of life? Read More »

Hampton Court was a cooperative in trouble. Operating costs were ballooning in everything from staff overtime to the use of outside contractors, while the co-op itself — after borrowing and spending heavily to perform long-neglected capital repairs and maintenance — was desperately cash-strapped. The reserve funds were critically low, forcing the board to impose a monthly 10 percent assessment on the shareholders. To top if off, a new, untested slate of directors had just been elected.And Hampton Court has not been alone in facing challenges. There was the Brooklyn co-op with the mysterious leak, the source of which escaped detection by the hapless board. And there was the four-unit co-op, also in Brooklyn, which — although it only has three shareholders — still had trouble agreeing on whether it should do patchwork or spend the big bucks on needed capital repairs.

The common thread: each property needed money. And a lot of it. Read More »

Ben Perez is no slouch at dealing with building systems — his job as an infrastructure urban planner at a large engineering firm has brought him into contact with engineers, construction workers and the like — but in his seven years as president of the 12-story, 49-unit cooperative at 50 Plaza Street East, off Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, he had never encountered a more frustrating mystery than The Leak. The board members tried one patch solution after another. Nothing worked. It still leaked.

Finally, in 2007, Perez and the board realized that patches wouldn't help. They needed a major waterproofing job involving repairing and/or replacing steel girders, terra cotta façade designs and balconies. "It was sort of a fussy job," Perez says. And it also needed a large infusion of cash. Read More »

In a condo on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a resident's practice of renting his apartment to a string of transient visitors has the condo board concerned and even fearful. Given the state of the global economy, the demand for short-term accommodations in New York City isn't likely to slacken, with Europeans in particular flocking here to take advantage of the weak dollar and the bargains it affords on everything from clothes to computers. So what can a condo association — as opposed to a more strictly regulated co-op corporation — do to keep its the building from becoming a de facto hotel? Read More »

Most boards keep an eye out for red flags. The board at Brooklyn's Willoughby Walk Cooperative Apartments, however, kept an eye out for a red, white, and blue flag — and in the process invested hours of time and attorney fees, got a black eye in the media and went up against the spirit of a federal law so patriotic it's got both "Freedom" and "American Flag" in its name. Here's a case study of both how authoritarianism can create unnecessary problems reaching far beyond the walls of a co-op, and how compromise and creativity can lead to Solomonic solutions. Read More »

What makes a great leader? Vision, taking charge and building consensus. A successful board president must know how to handle irate shareholders and dissenting board members while also attending to the practicalities of day-to-day operation. "Great leaders are excellent at creating a vision and strategy, and at motivating their troops toward fulfilling that vision into tangible realities," says leadership consultant Lars G. Harrison. Or as John Quincy Adams put it, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

Here's part one of our close-up look at four co-op presidents who have significantly improved the communities in which they live, and shown they have the right stuff to be great leaders. Read More »

In Part 1, we looked at how two board presidents, one in Queens, one in Brooklyn, used vision, strategy and motivation to achieve tangible results that significantly improved their communities. What they did, you can do.

Here are two more such leaders, in two more neighborhoods and two very different circumstances. What they and our first duo have in common is a reasoned, diplomatic approach that places the community over themselves, and the ability to communicate simply and clearly. Here are their stories.... Read More »