Despite the drastic decline in buyouts, some are going forward, possibly removing hundreds of units from the Mitchell-Lama stock in the months to come. At Knickerbocker Plaza, a Mitchell-Lama rental on the Upper East Side, the owner gave tenants the required one-year notice of its intent to exit Mitchell-Lama last summer. The buyout was set for October and then re-scheduled for Dec. 1, according to Rita Popper, president of the tenants association at Knickerbocker Plaza. Popper wonders if the owner has the financing to go ahead with the deal. “I would imagine, if I were the owner, I would rather have [the buyout] happen sooner than later,” says Popper.
Knickerbocker’s owner, DeMatteis Organizations, is proceeding with the buyout, according to DeMatteis spokesman Gerald McKelvey. He says DeMatteis has a lender, and DeMatteis “expect[s] to close on the loan to fund the buyout in early or mid-December.” Knickerbocker Plaza has about 600 apartments.
And many other Mitchell-Lama tenants are fighting – sometimes with landlords, sometimes with co-op neighbors – over the affordability of their buildings. Popper said her tenants association spent six months negotiating an agreement between DeMatteis and the tenants, protecting them from sudden rent increases. Columbus Park Towers, an Upper West Side co-op with 162 units, voted in favor of leaving Mitchell-Lama last week. And a number of other co-ops and rentals, with hundreds of apartments and families between them, have owners and co-op boards considering going private.
There are still more than 100,000 apartments in the program – down from 140,000 in 1978. Another big chunk could fall away if the nearly 6,000 apartments at Starrett City, the unique affordable community near Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn, exit the Mitchell-Lama program. It has filed a notice to buy out. The silver lining is that the apartments would not be leaving the stock of affordable housing; due to a deal brokered by the government, the apartments will remain within reach of working New Yorkers.
