Council Member Aldebol on gradual increases vs. deferred maintenance cycles

And rather than have, you know, smaller percentage increases over time, I mean, one of the, it's not New York City, but we have a Michilama co-op that just got

a tremendously huge increase after 10 years of not having increases.

You know and their you know their response to me was well we we've had to do all these capital improvements and we but you know it's like why did we get to this point

where now they're scrambling to do all these capital improvements

And they obviously have to balance their books.

And instead of doing it on a year, you know, balancing their books on a yearly basis.

and having a more, you know, regular schedule of, you know, maintenance and, you know, and capital improvements or whatever needs to happen in that building.

Like, you know, I've been in Tracy Tower many times.

I used to represent the workers there.

Yeah, I think that's a change that we were willing.

But, you know, there are, you know, wage increases and benefit increase for the staff, you know, for the workers there.

We're not going to, like, not raise wages and benefits over time.

We're not going to wait 10 years for people to get a wage increase.

I mean, that has been happening.

You know, over time and the needs and the recurring maintenance needs, you know, happen over time and waiting 10 years

to fix the problem on the backs of tenants is, you know, really unacceptable.

Yeah, I mean, I would say as like a former underwriter for affordable housing, like we would welcome regular increases at Mitchell Lamas if they came to us with the request, right, to have a

little bit of a stable instead of waiting until we're not meeting our expenses, the capital needs are out of control, and we're in a crisis moment.

Yeah.

Thank you.