Coop secrecy has to go

Purchasing an apartment is one of the most important steps a family takes, but when coop Boards turn people down, they routinely refuse to provide reasons.  Disclosing the reasons is a matter of simple fairness.  The failure to disclose makes it too easy for coop Boards to continue to discriminate in violation of the City’s Human Rights Law.  That’s why we need Intro 407, the Fair Residential Cooperative Disclosure Law (the "coop disclosure bill").

Repeated studies have shown that New York City and its surrounding metro area are among the most segregated places for African-Americans and Latinos in the entire U.S.

>> POLL SHOWS OVERWHELMING SUPPORT FOR COOP DISCLOSURE <<

There are over 300,000 coop units in the City; slightly more than half are outside Manhattan.  The Fair Residential Coop Disclosure Law would:

• Require coops to disclose in a timely fashion their specific reasons for rejecting an applicant.

• Only permit coops to defend themselves against discrimination charges based on reasons they had provided to the family rejected.

• Coops will no longer be able to evade responsibility by coming up with new reasons after the fact.

Coops would be permitted to continue to be able to reject applicants for any lawful reason – the bill neither expands nor contracts the scope of their authority and does not give authority to anyone to bring suit for anything other than a lack of disclosure. Coops with fewer than 10 units would be exempted.

Discrimination in coops has been very difficult to attack. Unlike rental housing, or house sales, it is extremely difficult for organizations to “test” for discrimination in the coop purchase context.
It is not too much to ask to require coops to put their cards on the table and set out specific reasons for rejection.

By enacting this bill, we will deter discrimination, and do so in a cost-effective manner. No data has to be submitted to the City: the bill empowers the persons affected to get the needed information. The bill will reduce misunderstandings and make it easier for people to see when a rejection is legitimate.

Unfortunately, opponents of this bill speak in terms eerily similar to that of old-time, exclusionary country clubs: a coop Board needs “a certain amount of privacy” to make “uncomfortable” decisions. They have actually said that simple disclosure would “destroy the very fabric of coop life” and that trying to mandate transparency is “at least as immoral and unethical” as discrimination itself.    Enforcement of civil rights law must trump the unaccountability and privilege that some coop Boards and their hired guns want to defend.