coop boards behaving badly / 32 Gramercy Park South edition

you can’t make this stuff up
Tip of the Manhattan Loft Guy hat to Gothamist for pointing to the NY Post article and one in the Daily News reporting that the coop board at 32 Gramercy Park South has sued an owner over holiday decorations. The articles are not crystal clear about exactly what the owner has been doing, but it appears that he decorates his door, his windows and the public hallway for various holidays (including Valentine’s Day and the 4th of July).

The Post says that this coop’s

Typically, house rules are boilerplate written in the 1970s and almost never re-read or changed, but I can’t say if the windows restriction is common (curious coop owners may be surprised to see all the silly little rules in their house rules). Certainly, the public hallways restrictions are standard, though in many situations whatever works for the neighbors on a given floor is accepted by the coop — particularly in lofts or even apartment buildings with only a few units per floor.

is your lawyer this tone-deaf?
Sometimes the lawyer-as-mouthpiece doesn’t work so well. As quoted in the News:

"Rules are rules, that’s part and parcel of living in a co-op," said Michelle Quinn, a lawyer for the co-op board. "If you want to put up holiday decorations, go live in a house somewhere."

Yup, rules are rules. And ‘tacky’ is in the eye of the beholder. But that is a weak justification for restricting an owner’s decorations, particularly decorations in the apartment. (Perhaps Ms. Quinn had more reasonable things to say, which did not make it into print; perhaps not.)

Apparently, this building has a pretty strict aesthetic sense for what the neighbors can see. (Prohibiting ‘stuff’ in common areas that create fire hazards or inconvenience is commonplace.) I am curious whether shareholders will support the board on this expenditure of coop funds to start a lawsuit over window decorations.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008