FEDERATION PRIORITIES FOR THE COMING YEAR

The Federation of New York Housing Cooperatives is a building member association that is dedicated to serving the interest of all cooperatives and condominiums. Founded in 1953, the Federation's motto is "An informed board is an effective board". We continue this by celebrating our very successful 44th Annual Seminar and Trade Show (the longest running such show in the New York City Real Estate Industry).

In preparing for this article, two immediate priorities come to mind. The first concern is the New York City election. Since we have term limits, new faces will appear in the political arena. When the Action Committee for Reasonable Real Estate Taxes first started to advocate for equity in Real Estate Taxes over ten years ago, the Action Committee spent the first few years educating city officials about cooperatives and condominiums. Now they know. We want to jump start that process for this new crop of public officials.

The Federation along with our fellow New York associations, Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums (CNYC) and the Coordinating Council of Cooperatives (CCC) will be presenting a series of educational seminars for citywide candidates in this year's election. In the shadow of term limits, many new elected officials will be governing New York City. This series of educational seminars will attempt to educate these candidates to the cooperative housing community and also the many different types of cooperative housing that exists in New York City. A former National Association of Housing Cooperatives (NAHC) intern Mosses Gates was hired to coordinate this effort.

The next item is the expiring of the New York City Property Tax Abatement Program on June 30, 2001. A recommendation must come from New York City known as "Home Rule" legislation and New York State must pass legislation in order for the abatements to continue. The Federation supports City Council Speaker Peter Vallone's proposal in a three-year extension along with higher abatement amounts and expansion of the program. The Federation hopes Mr. Vallone prevails with his negotiation with Mayor Giuliani and the State Legislators.

Other important issues in which the Federation is currently actively pursuing are dealing with the emerging energy crises. The Federation has joined others in obtaining additional New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) grant money to help educate our membership how to conserve energy such as, electrical submetering, apply for grant money to off set the cost of submetering and testifying for tax credits from local government. The Federation is committed to legislatively mandating all multifamily buildings that have master meters to sub meter. In addition, "J-51" benefits should be expanded to encourage all residential master metered buildings to do so.

The Federation supports the New York Association of Realty Managers (NYARM) efforts in legislation requiring licensing of property managers. The cooperative and condominium communities should embrace and support this legislation. Managing agents are in charge of assets worth millions of dollars and Boards mainly consisting of non real estate professionals should be afforded a minimum of competency of their agent. The Federation receives numerous calls from boards asking where they can complain about their managing agent/company. Right now, all we can tell then is to lodge a complaint against their brokers' license (if they have one) at the New York State Department of Licensing. Hopefully, licensing of property managers will help these situations and we will all have an assurance that our managing agent has a minimum of competency in real estate.

The Federation is also monitoring the progress of the New York City Department of Finance in assuring that cooperative properties are not held accountable to Rent Stabilization Fees that the cooperative is not obligated for.

On the Federal level, the Federation along with CNYC and CCC is seeking to modify Section 216 - 80/20 equations to be fairer. For financing cooperative apartments, we want authorization for veteran's benefits to be used, currently, regulations prohibit such use.

In Albany, in addition to the extension of the New York City Property Tax Abatement Program, the Federation along with CNYC and CCC is seeking protection of volunteer boards from criminal liability. Also, we are seeking a complete separate trail part in Housing Court for cooperatives and condominium issues.

The Federation is currently looking to improve and find new membership services such as board educational seminars through out the five boroughs and expanding our growing Internet "coop-forum" bulletin board/discussion group.

The last Federation priority is probably the same as other membership associations -- that is to increase membership. If we accomplish all of the above, this priority will be a reality.

---

THE ENERGY CRISIS

In early May, summer hit with record high temperatures. One does not know what the temperature might be when summer officially arrives. The City is busily constructing mini power plants just to meet this summer's projected electrical needs. However, local environmental and concerned groups have and are trying to stop this construction. Who knows what will happen. Con Ed says the summer rates will be about the same as last year and they have a long range plan to up upgrade their transmission and distribution capacity. Sounds great! Again, who knows?

With all the publicity about California's rolling blackouts and the massive increase, New York City still has the higher price for electricity. Only Hawaii has a higher rate of electricity. The only tried and proven way to help alleviate power outages and high-energy costs is conservation.

For the last couple of years, the Federation has been advocating for those member buildings that are master metered to sub metered. The Federation joined with sub metering expert engineer, Herbert Hirschfeld, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), in obtaining a grant to do feasibility studies (free of charge) to our membership's master meter buildings. Few members took advantage of this program and those that did, never followed through to completion. Facts speak for themselves: - a sub-metered building saves 15 to 30% annually on its electric consumption. For those Boards who have a small vocal minority of shareholders, pushing the boards to no action, some attorneys have concluded the board may not need shareholder approval. (Please consult your attorney if this might apply in your situation.)

For master metered buildings, J-51 benefits at $280.00 per meter can be applied for. In addition, NYSERDA will reimburse your community $150.00 per meter. The cost of the meters can range from 400 upwards. For those complexes that have direct metering (Each resident receives their own electric bill) you can benefit from changing to a master meter and sub meter each unit. You can aggregate all those units and pay a lower electrical rate. NYSERDA will reimburse your building at $150.00 per meter. The City Council is seriously considering (they already held hearings on the subject) having J-51 benefits applied in this situation also.

NYSERDA has other money available for certain energy conservation buildings systems and self-generating electric producers (mini turbines). The Federation has joined Herbert Hirschfeld again in a new NYSERDA program "Cogeneration Demonstration for Multifamily Buildings and Information Dissemination" Program. Also, for those of you that have individual air-conditioning units in your windows, the new "Smart Energy" A/C units save you a tremendous amount of electric consumption for either you or your building energy dollars, please investigate. In addition, for turning in your old air conditioning unit you can receive a "bounty" of $75.00. This program lasts until September 20, 2001. For a list of participating retailers and "energy Smart" models, please call NYSERDA at 1-877-NY-SMART or visit their website at www.GetEnergySmart.org. Another program available is the NYSERDA Residential Appliance and Lighting program. NYSERDA will give incentive for replacing old energy hungry appliances and lighting fixtures. The product list includes clothes washer (incentive $130. to $145 per washer), dishwasher ($60 to $65), refeigerator ($120 to $145), room air conditioners ($75) and lighting fixtures ($25 to $27). Again, you must use NYSERDA approved appliances and fixtures. To find out more about this program, please contact NYSERDA directly at (518)-862-1090, ext 3202 or 3221: fax (518)-862-1091 or visit their website at www.GetEnergySmart.org. The Federation, as always, will keep you advised.

A Tool too Valuable to Waste From:
Dick Koral, Super Club of New York

Your Federation has set up a List Service to enable board members of one building to consult board members of all Federation buildings when seeking solutions to building problems. If you have not yet utilized the List Service, you owe it to yourself and your shareholders to check it out and be ready to call on it when you need it. Some professionals like myself have signed on and respond to questions we think we have the answers or clues to finding them. However, the potentially most valuable communications are among board members.

What Is a List Service Anyway?

A computer connected to the Internet is dedicated (it never sleeps!) to receiving messages from any one of a list of people who have signed up, relaying the message to all the rest. A typical use: A desperate Buildings Chair Betty W at Leaky Towers needs to get the names of three good roofers to submit bids for a big job coming up. She sends the message: "Can anyone recommend*?" Chances are, there will be several responses, all popping up on her computer from other board members and/or building managers.

FNYHC's Web site (www.fnyhc.coop) should make you proud. Keeps you up to date with what's important to co-ops and condos. Right on the opening page you will find this: "Stay in touch with the Cooperative Community. Subscribe to The Federation of New York Housing Cooperatives' Co-op Forum mailing list. Ask questions. Get opinions. Put in your two cents' worth! To subscribe, simply send an e-mail message to co-opforum-subscribe@fnyhc.coop. We look forward to speaking with you online!" It's that simple!

Never, Never Hit "Reply"

New users of list service often make the mistake of using the reply button of their e-mail service after receiving a message from the server. The reply goes to the server. Suppose that, in response to Betty W's questions, I hit "reply" and wrote, "Suggest you try Arcane Corp. at 23 Penn Lane, Long Island City 800-555-1212." Now, the server sends that message to ALL the people on the list, to their great annoyance. THEY don't need a roofer!

What I might have done is to hit "Reply to Sender," then erase the co-op forum address that appears in to the "To:" box, and substitute "bettyw@honest-abe.com."

I look forward to "speaking" with you online!

---

NEW MEMBERSHIP SERVICES

A BULK OF THE FEDERATION'S TIME HAS BEEN DEDICATED TO OFFERING OUR MEMBERSHIP SERVICES THAT MAY HELP TO SAVE YOU MONEY AND HELP YOUR BUILDING.

THESE SERVICES ARE AS FOLLOWS:

A NEW FEDERATION SERVICE FOR ITS MEMBERSHIP

The Federation of New York Housing Cooperatives, in collaboration with the engineering firm of Herbert E. Hirschfeld, P.E., has received funding from the State of New York (The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority) to provide direct assistance to master metered residential buildings interested in evaluating the technical and economic feasibility of electrical submetering.

These services include a building survey and preparation of a study specific to your building and a meeting with your Board of Directors to review this report, answer questions and address all pertinent submetering issues. Also available incentive payments from NYSERDA and cost sharing engineering services to those buildings which implement shall be presented.

All Fees for these services are paid by NYSERDA and there is NO COST nor obligation to your building.

The Federation urges you to take advantage of this opportunity to reduce your building operating costs now as funding is limited and buildings will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis.

Further information regarding this electrical submetering program is also currently available through the Internet via the NYSERDA website. Go to www.nyserda.org and click on Residential Programs. Next click on the submetering icon and you will be connected to www.submeteronline.com or you can access this website by going directly to www.submeteronline.com.

Additionally, NYSERDA has granted this Project Team including the FNYHC additional funding to develop information which will be accessible from the FNYHC website regarding cogeneration. This should be available later this year.

Interested buildings regarding the submetering program may contact Herbert E. Hirschfeld, P.E. at (516) 759-2400 or Greg Carlson at (718) 760.7540.

The Federation's web site is now online in its' infancy stage. We will be mailing to all our members, an opportunity to list their building's information at our web site. Right now, the site provides a legal corner, event list with links to other cooperative sites, legislative issues, a question and answer page where you can ask your questions directly to the Federation and the Federation Newsletter. Please visit our site at "FNYHC.ORG", let us know what you think and don't hesitate to ask us questions. See above article.

SAVE ON WORKERS COMPENSATION:

The Federation has signed on with the Durnan Group Managers Workers Compensation Safety Group. One of the line items' on all of our member buildings with staffs is workers compensation insurance. The Federation has been studying different workers compensation insurance providers and has concluded that the Durnan Group best fits the needs of our membership. With discounted premiums up-front and a substantial dividend at the end of the year, this makes the safety group the best deal around. Each claim is investigated thoroughly, which is why this group can offer the best workers compensation package in the state. To find out more information or to sign up, please call the Durnan Group Managers at 1-212-768-9191 and make sure to tell them you are a Federation member.

ELECTRIC DEREGULATION

FOLLOW UP TO PREVIOUS MAILING:

With all the confusion concerning electric deregulation, a new Energy Service Company (ESCO) is consumer oriented. 1st Rochdale Cooperative is an energy company that is owned by buildings who belong to 1st Rochdale. They are not just an energy provider, as the other ESCO's. Similar to what happens when you belong to a cooperative, there are no investors, so the consumers are the owners. In addition, they will do energy audits on your building to see what can be done to diminish or reduce your demand side electric bill, which will save you kilowatts and money. Start now in preparing your building, talk to all the "ESCO's" and talk to 1st Rochdale, you will be surprised in what you hear. For further information, please call 1st Rochdale at 1-212-673-3900.