![]() But the majority of people on the board-the majority of people making the decisions up until mid-’75-are actually the same people that are on the board of the United Housing Foundation. There were residents on the board the corporation that technically runs Co-op City. The idea was that once they paid off the mortgage, then they would actually control the cooperative completely. The United Housing Foundation two kinds of shares, A shares and B shares. Why did Co-op City need another step to get there? ![]() When we think of a co-op, we tend to think of it as being automatically resident-controlled. They win resident control of the development away from the United Housing Foundation. This rent strike, about 80% of the population participated in it. They were projected to rise up to 250 percent over what they’d been originally projected as. This rent strike really is a carrying charge strike essentially, carrying charges had risen. These carrying charges pay the mortgage, operating expenses, utilities. Everyone buys in-that’s what they call an equity deposit-and then you pay monthly carrying charges. Now, in reality, they’re not paying rent, because it’s a cooperative they own a piece of the development as a whole. The United Housing Foundation builds Co-op City it’s their largest project and it’s their final project using funding from New York State.Ĭo-op City is first occupied in the late ’60s but prices wind up rising, and by the mid-1970s, they have what they called a rent strike. Essentially, we’re talking about communist Jews. The United Housing Foundation has its origins in the Lower East Side. It was built in the mid-’60s by a group called the United Housing Foundation, was part of this broader push in New York state and New York City to produce not just housing projects for the very poor but affordable apartment housing for the middle class and working class. It’s 15,372 apartments, in a corner of the Northeast Bronx. What is Co-op City? How did it come to be?Ĭo-op City is the largest housing cooperative in America, possibly internationally. I didn’t know about the history, I just knew that it had happened. Growing up, I played with the children of the leaders of the rent strike. My family moved to Co-op City right after the rent strike ended. I’d heard pieces of history, but very little. Basically, the people around you are all ordinary New Yorkers. One is, as I say in the book, Co-op City is designed in a way for ordinary New Yorkers. ![]() I don’t think I grew up thinking of it as a particularly unique or special place at all, for a couple of reasons. “ Freedomland: Co-op City and the Story of New York,” by Oberlin College history professor Annemarie Sammartino, traces the history of Co-op City from its initial planning stages in the mid 1960s through the early 1990s, including a major rent strike, the assertion of community control, race and class dynamics, and the ways the development reflected what was happening in New York City as a whole.Īt what point did you realize that you grew up in a very unusual place compared to most Americans? It seems timely, then, that a new book is out about the largest housing cooperative in the country, a development of phenomenal scale and longevity-Co-op City in the Bronx. Co-ops and community land trusts-frequently mentioned strategies for creating permanently affordable housing-often face challenges about their potential to scale up. ![]() To read more about affordable housing and housing justice, visit .Īffordable housing activists spend a lot of time talking about how to bring about solutions that match the scale of the problem. This interview was first published in Shelterforce. ![]()
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