Tempers are flaring at an East Village co-op over the board potentially selling one of its parking lots without keeping shareholders in the loop.
Around 400 residents at Village View — a seven-building Mitchell-Lama complex with 1,236 units between East Second and East Sixth streets and First Avenue and Avenue A — have signed a petition seeking transparency around the proposed sale and redevelopment of Parking Lot 7.
Angry shareholders say the board has been breadcrumbing information about the potential sale — that it has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing a sale and has received a bid for $30 million — but has failed to disclose all details, provide proper notice, release all documents and halt any redevelopment actions until a shareholder vote.
The Post has learned that the board received six or seven bids for nine-story rental buildings with an affordability component, starting at a mid-$30 million price. The board is waiting for the “best and final offers,” said the board’s representative, land-use attorney Jodi Stein.
“No decisions have been made with regard to the sale,” said Stein, a partner at Sheppard.
Regardless, the board doesn’t have to obtain shareholder approval in order to proceed.
Shareholder Sebastian Kot cited part of Business Corporation Law, Section 909, as the reason why the board should have informed shareholders about selling the lot.
Section 909 says if a corporation wants to sell, lease, exchange or otherwise get rid of all, or substantially all, of its assets, and this move is outside its normal, everyday business operations, the board must pass the proposal along to the shareholders for a vote.
The board said the irregular lot is about 100 feet by 230 feet, and though it represents around one third of the property’s 345 parking spots, it is a fraction of the size of the complex. “This is but a small portion of what they own,” Stein said.
Kot has lived in the complex for more than 20 years and has one of the 110 coveted parking spots in Lot 7. There are seven lots total.
“I’ve been parking there for many years,” said Kot, a senior financial crime compliance officer for Westpac Group. His wife uses the car daily to transport their two children to their Midtown school.
The board has asked the developers to include in their proposals how they would replace the parking spots.
Shareholder Robert LaValva doesn’t have a car at this time, but is upset about how the board is handling the potential sale of the lot.
The former board member, who has dwelled in his apartment since 1982, said the board is “continuing in secrecy and without any transparency, without involving the shareholders, without asking for our opinions.” He added, “This was a two-year process where at some point early on, they could have or should have really involved the shareholder community.”
Enraged shareholders said they have had to piece together what has been happening since the board engaged Stein and lobbyist Domenic Recchia in 2024, by cobbling together leaked information with meeting minutes and brief shareholder-board communication at meetings.
LaValva, a freelance city planner, acknowledged that it would not be feasible for the board to run every decision by all shareholders, but said, “this is a pretty major decision.”
In reality the board only requires approval from the city’s Housing Preservation & Development, which regulates the middle-income complex, and a green light from members of the board.
Concerns abound around what will replace the lot — whether it will obstruct views and what kind of residents it will house.
“You know what everyone is concerned about?” said shareholder Stephen L. D’Andrilli, a former teacher. “The lack of the fiduciary responsibility of the board to act to the benefit of the shareholders, and their lack of transparency and secrecy.”
“This board is tyrannical and it’s really not right,” the 26-year Village View resident added.
Village View is in debt to the tune of $1 million, per Stein, and requires a lot of maintenance.
“Many Mitchell-Lama cooperatives across the city, which were built all around the same time period — in the 1960s — face similar problems, and really only have two options,” Stein said. They are drastically increasing maintenance fees or going private, “exiting the Mitchell-Lama program entirely and eliminating thousands of units of affordable housing.”
After eight years of remaining the same, maintenance increases were recently approved: 14% for the first year, 10% for the second year and 5% for the third year.
“Unless Mitchell-Lama cooperatives pursue creative solutions, as the Village View board is doing, they will inevitably face one of these two outcomes,” Stein said. “The parking lot sale offers a genuine third path: one that stabilizes the co-op financially without placing an undue burden on shareholders or sacrificing the existing affordable housing that residents and the broader community depend upon.”
“That’s how co-ops work,” Stein said. “They elect the board. The board has decision-making power over certain decisions and that’s included not only in the bylaws, but in the law.”
As for where the proceeds from the sale would go, Recchia said it would go into a trust.
“They won’t touch the principle,” he said. “We’re going to collect the interest. And that’s what they’re going to use to pay down the bills and to make Village View prosper and correct everything that needs to be corrected and fix everything that needs to be fixed.”
