As both a writer about and resident of high-rise residential buildings, I followed the June 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium with a hawk’s eye. I read about the people who perished and the loved ones left to carry on;…
Passed in 2019, The Climate Mobilization Act (CMA) is an ambitious legislative package that puts emissions limits on New York City’s large commercial and residential buildings. In addition to these limits, which are codified in Local La…
Deadlines for benchmarking reporting for all apartment buildings - co-ops, condos, and rentals alike - has been postponed from May 1, 2022, to May 31, 2022. The postponement gives building and property owners more time to accumulate and org…
The Real Deal reports that developer Barnet Liberman has been sued for failure to pay common charges in the building he co-developed and in which he owns (or just lives in, depending who you ask—see below) the penthouse. Along with a part…
On May 10, 32BJ SEIU and Laborers’ Local 79 rallied at City Hall in support of the One45 Harlem development project and spotlighted the project’s workforce housing proposal that will bring family-sustaining union jobs to Harlem. The rally c…
Hoarding Disorder - the compulsive need to collect and keep possessions, animals, or even trash - is estimated to affect as much as five percent of the population. In New York City where neighbors share walls, a hoarding resident often beco…
Q. My co-op building’s property management company has an alarmingly bad habit of NOT taking all necessary precautions to protect highly sensitive and confidential shareholder information, like the information contained in sales closing d…
The psychosocial impact of the pandemic is far-reaching. And like the rest of the world, residents living in condos, co-ops, and HOAs have been conditioned to keep their distance and turn inward. But even with infection rates slowing overal…
It’s that time of year again. Birds are chirping; trees are blooming; property managers and co-op and condo boards are addressing their task lists for the change of seasons. Whether it’s a Midwood walk-up or a Midtown supertall, a dense cit…
There’s a riddle in a popular children’s book that asks, ‘What’s the largest room in the world?’ After much consideration and many incorrect guesses, one of the characters in the book has the answer: “Why, the largest room in the world is r…