“2 to 11”: Two Sides

Brooklyn Heights Affordable Co-op Gets City Aid to Generate Cash Via Sales, Dashing Waitlisters’ Dreams

“Owners in a debt-saddled Brooklyn Heights affordable co-op complex are getting city help unlocking the power to generate cash when apartments sell — infuriating people who’ve spent years on the waiting list for one of the highly coveted units at Cadman Towers.

The City Council on Thursday approved a tax break that will help Cadman Towers become the first Mitchell-Lama cooperative to convert to a city-sponsored affordable housing co-op known as an HDFC. Cadman, which comprises 421 apartments, is burdened with $62 million worth of debt coming due and unable to take on additional loans to pay for tens of millions of dollars more for needed repairs.”  Continue reading here.

Since there’s always at least two sides to a story, here’s an opinion from a shareholder who opposed the conversion.

Opinion: NY’s Mitchell-Lama Housing Should Be Preserved, Not Dismantled

“Dissolving our building’s Mitchell-Lama status would be a small but significant injustice in an already deeply unequal city. Shareholders who have long benefited from the program would be autonomously divesting some of the city’s affordable housing stock, and profiting from the conversion.

Since I moved in at Cadman Towers with my partner two years ago, I have felt exceptionally lucky to benefit from the uniquely affordable arrangement that is the New York State Mitchell-Lama program. Subsidized by the city and state in the form of generous tax abatements and public financing opportunities, Mitchell-Lama housing was created so that families with modest earnings could afford to put down roots in the city, and so that prices would not lurch upward every time a unit turned over.”  Continue reading here.

Photo credit: Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY