Ed Yeager, Coordinating Council of Cooperatives, testifies on limited equity housing needs

Yes, you can go ahead, sir.

Ed Yeager, chair of the Coordinating Council of Cooperatives and Amalgamated Houses, as Eric knows.

I thank the council and the committees for holding this hearing.

It's an important topic.

I'll start with two key points.

The hearing specifies Mitchell-Lama.

But it's important to include all limited equity housing, limited dividend, redevelopment, as well as Mitchell Lama.

State supervised as well as city supervised.

We're all New Yorkers.

We're all part of this community.

Second, one of the financial burdens we have is compliance with city policies.

I'd like to recommend

a task force including the council, staff, HPD, Department of Buildings,

and management and board of limited equity co-ops.

We can find ways to reduce the city's burden without diminishing our safety.

We know the difference between safety and overzealous rulemaking that simply adds to our cost.

And doesn't reduce our burden.

CCC are mostly large campus-style co-ops.

We provide more than just housing.

We provide community.

Our members created the first NARC programs.

Allowing seniors to age in place and saving the city money on costs that would otherwise accrue for health, etc.

We all need financial assistance.

We're paying for years of deferred maintenance and years deferred

carry charge increases.

These developments all have income restrictions and were designed for people who could meet the maintenance charges, but now we're facing

costs for rebuilding infrastructure, insurance skyrocketing,

and the array of city mandates.

We can't maintain the growing costs and maintain affordable housing.

So if we were

together we could reduce some of those costs and you have expertise we who actually live there have expertise to bring to the table thank you thank you