The phrase "Reduce, reuse, recycle" has become something of a mantra in our times - though you still occasionally see a glass bottle or plastic container just stuffed in the trash, more and more people from all walks of life are becoming…
The buzz about green buildings and energy conservation is so loud you just can't shut your ears to it. And why should you? We are being inundated with information on how to make our buildings and our lives greener. Even if your building …
Apartment owners and homeowners have come to expect our utility bills to increase from year to year, though rarely do we have a chance to significantly reduce those bills. This quandary provides opportunities for savings, though. High ut…
Ever since An Inconvenient Truth , Al Gore's eye-opening documentary on global warming opened in 2006, the level of awareness among the general public on environmental issues has skyrocketed. Since then, there have been sobering natio…
Q I’m a shareholder in a co-op in Park Slope. The board has summarily decided that we no longer require a full-time, live-in superintendent. When I served on the board several years ago, I understood that a building had to have a partic…
Q Who checks up on the board? Does the board police themselves from within, or is the managing agent checking up on their actions? If the board makes a mistake, will the shareholders be notified? In what way is a board accountable to th…
Q I live in a 140-unit co-op building. The building was built in 1961 and was converted in 1985 under a non-eviction plan. The former sponsor still owns about 20 percent of all the units. These units are either rent-controlled or rent-…
Q My family lives in a beautiful three-bedroom apartment on the first floor of an Upper West Side apartment building in Manhattan. Twelve months ago the co-op elected to begin a re-pointing project on the exterior of our building that w…
Q I live on the top floor of a co-op. Over the past three years water seeping through our parapet wall did considerable damage to one room in my apartment. Repairs were finally made. The walls and ceiling took two days to plaster and…
Serving on the board of directors for your building brings on a range of emotions: pride that you were selected to represent the best interests of your fellow shareholders; unease at the thought of the additional time commitment of meetings…