WHEN SPONSORS REFUSE TO SELL, PT. 2, P.2

Hirsch acknowledges that he filed a legal action against certain tenant-shareholders who contend they are a legitimately elected co-op board, based on a lawful election in August of 2007. Hirsch disputes that.

Stein charges that Hirsch is determined not to sell additional apartments to prospective owners, something he does not deny. "I'm in the rental business," he notes. At the same time, he contends that selling apartments has not been a problem for tenant-shareholders at 160 Ocean Parkway and that Kensington Terrace Apartments has taken a passive role in vetting new applicants. "As long as they have [good financials]," he says, "we don't get involved. That's a neighbor issue."

Hirsch says tenant-shareholders like Stein want to have it both ways, and seek to change the character of a building which was a known quantity when they moved in. "Every person who bought into this building bought into the status quo," he observes. "So, for them to cry foul now is disingenuous at best. This is the nature of this building. You will pay less [for an apartment] in a building with substantial sponsor control. [Stein] got her [good purchase price] because this was and is the situation."

Stein sees it differently. "Now we're doing the elevator repairs and everything else the building needs," she says. "We worked our asses off to hold the building together. But we're at a legal standstill. We can't have an annual election because we can't get a quorum. Hirsch doesn't come to meetings and he has convinced the holders of unsold shares to stay away from meetings, so we're continuing to serve. At least the shareholders now know what is going on at 160 Ocean Parkway."

That knowledge has come from newsletters the board members send out and from the nature of the tenancy. "We're a tight-knit building," Stein says. "Everyone is interested."

But few are as involved as Stein and her colleagues Beverly Wasserman, a retired clerical worker, and the president, Dominic Diorio, an accountant who "was very helpful in making the refinancing make sense to us."

Money is on Stein's mind these days, too — other people's, which she is trying to protect, and her own and her fellow board members' which they are spending on the lawsuit with Hirsch. "The co-op's insurance won't pay for it," she says matter-of-factly.

As for advice to others:, the Teamsters worker has a solid lesson that could be drawn from her union job: "Organizing is key. You've got to stick together in order to survive."

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Adapted from Habitat December 2008. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>