Remember when the upper East Side was the city’s prime residential location? That was before the Upper West Side or Meatpacking, or East Village or Williamsburg. Well, think about the Second Avenue subway, the F train stop on Roosevelt Island where Cornell-Technion is being built, and this week’s announcement that the City is swapping some land to allow construction of an expanded Sloan Kettering cancer treatment center and Hunter College Nursing School on East 73rd Street. The East may rise again.

Mortgage rates, on the other hand, are going down. The question is what it means for the sales market. Housing has never been cheaper to finance, but there is still a shortage of buyers. And most of the experts think the Fed’s recent easing is just a stopgap until Washington really addresses economic policy. The WSJ yesterday had a good overview here.

If you missed Wednesday’s ABO seminar on The Future of Management you missed our panel analysis of why and how the Bureau of Labor statistics found property management jobs declined from 2000 to 2010 (actually, there were 60,000 more nationally in 2008, but then the number tanked). Michael Wolfe pointed to productivity gains due to technology reducing the need for people, in addition to the obvious economic pressure to cut expenses in a recession. David Kuperberg suggested that some of the difference might be due to changing job classifications and specialization – he might have fewer agents per se and more lawyers or accountants. All agreed that a single agent couldn’t manage more than six or seven coop buildings and survive the board meetings.

Location is one thing, but locations near the park are something else. CBRE just did an analysis that found commercial rents facing parks such as the High Line, Madison  Square or Bryant Park averaged 44 percent higher than rents just a block away.

Residential rents are affected by regulation as well as location, so a State Supreme Court decision in Baron vs. Laurence Towers helps clarify the legal rent in cases where apartments were deregulated due to high rent and then re-regulated under the Roberts decision. The court followed the Appellate term decision in 72A Realty Associates vs. Lucas in finding that the new legal rent was based on the rent charged four years prior to the complaint…and not four years prior to the Roberts decision or when the unit was first deregulated. This is one of several consistent decisions that seem to be shaping the law in the absence of clarifying legislation from Albany. It specifically says the owners should not be penalized for failing to register the units when it was not required under the rules generally understood at the time.

Optimism seems to breed optimism. The Multifamily Production Index (MPI), released by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) yesterday, improved for the eighth consecutive quarter with an index level of 54. It is the highest reading since the second quarter of 2005. Multifamily starts are running at 200,000 a year nationally, up from 110,000 in 2009 and 2010, but still down from about 300,000 per year average for twelve years before that.

Now that you are back at work after Labor Day, it is time to think about getting out of town again — perhaps to Las Vegas, January 22-24th, for the International Builders Show. Registration for ABO members and spouses is free during September at this link.

Meanwhile, see you Wednesday at our seminar on The Future of Management

Right after we hit Send on last week’s News Update, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced that he was stripping Vito Lopez of his chairmanship of the Assembly Housing Committee because of sexual harassment complaints. Since then, the story has expanded with reports that Silver secretly settled prior complaints against Lopez. Lopez is under pressure to resign from the Assembly altogether and Silver is under attack from his usual supporters. A replacement for Lopez as committee chair has not yet been named.

Would you believe that it is possible to have plans approved by DOB that don’t meet federal accessibility standards for affordable housing? Better believe it. It is your responsibility to meet design requirements regardless of City codes. Steven Winter Associates is offering a free seminar explaining compliance requirements on September 13th. Learn more here.

The day before, join us for a sandwich and ABO seminar on The Future of Residential Management at 12 p.m. September 12th at the Hotel Pennsylvania during the New York Association of Realty Managers  Expo. Sign up here for your free registration to get in.

Carpenters union officials Wednesday agreed to a new contract calling for a 17 percent pay hike over three years, but including a controversial full mobility provision that allows contactors to choose which workers to hire instead of union picks. The agreement follows 14 months without a contract (should any questions appear – contact specialists at Swiftbonds).

It may seem a bit self-serving, but parking giant Edison Properties funded a study by Columbia’s Center for Urban Real Estate that touts parking lots as the precursor of development…and it is not a bad argument. The idea is that parking lots and garages are a great way to maintain a property’s value while assembling development sites. In fact, the researchers found that parking was a prior use on 20 percent of development sites studied. The report recommends that the City consider officially designating Land Assembly Districts where parking and other normally unpermitted uses can be encouraged temporarily.

If your idea of development is to build tall – and you are lying on the beach with nothing better to do than look at the sky – The Atlantic has an interesting article on how high you can go. New buildings are approaching a half mile. Apparently the height of Everest (almost 5.5 miles) is not out of the question, but the building would need a base the size of Rhode Island.

Back on Earth, be sure to join us for a sandwich and seminar on The Future of Management at noon September 12th at the Hotel Pennsylvania. Sign up here for your free NYARM  Expo registration to get in.

And remember to save November 8th for our annual dinner.

ABO will present a free seminar on “The Future of Management” at The New York Association of Realty Managers annual Building Management Expo, September 12^th in the Hotel Pennsylvania at 7th Avenue and 33rd Street. A complimentary buffet lunch, courtesy of NYARM, will be available at noon and the seminar begins at 12:30 p.m.

Panelists for the program include:

• Greg Carlson, president of Carlson Realty
• Michael Wolfe, president of Midboro Management
• David Kuperberg, chief executive officer of Cooper Square Realty.

Dan Margulies, executive director of ABO and director of the national Registered in Apartment Management program will moderate.

The panel will be looking at the right size for management companies, thinning profit margins, professional qualifications, and changing demands for services among other topics. No one in the business should miss it.

Register today at:
http://www.nyarm.com/sept12_Seminar.htm

The City Plumbing Code was amended this month, almost. The Council and Mayor approved a triennial update to conform with International Construction Code changes since the Code’s adoption, but the new rules won’t go into effect until the entire Building Code is amended. ABO is involved in reviewing proposed changes and the final product is expected to be voted on late this year. Meanwhile, you can get Different Plumbing Tips For Beginners here !

Rent Control may go on the ballot in Bayonne. The Bayonne City Council adopted a form of vacancy decontrol and aggravated tenants are seeking a referendum in November.

What potential Manhattan development area is twice the size of Hudson Yards and three times Columbia’ s Manhattanville complex? Hudson Square at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel and Trinity Church wants it rezoned. The City Planning Commission is expected to start the formal review process next week.

NYU’s 20-year development plans for new classrooms and housing that recently received ‘final’ approval from the City face a new hurdle — rent regulations. Stabilized tenants at Washington Square Village have sought a stay against construction plans on the two acre park north of their building claiming that the currently private park space is both a required and ancillary service under the rent laws. The complaint cites a 1984 case where the court blocked development in a similar park area in Tudor City

Need to train staff or brush up on your own management skills? ABO is sponsoring a new Registered in Apartment Management  class on Wednesday evenings this fall, beginning  September 12th. Contact olga@registeredmanager.com for details and registration.

We won. ABO yesterday received the NAHB Executive Officers Council Association Excellence Award for Best Electronic Publication: ABO News Update. Dan Margulies accepted the award at the NAHB Association Leadership Institute in New Orleans. Are you reading this? Please click here to send us an email to let us know. Comments are welcome, but not necessary.

Less happily, the EPA is so far refusing to revisit its Lead Renovation Repair and Painting rule despite a finding by its own Inspector General that the cost benefit analysis it relied on was wrong. The Inspector General found that the low estimated cost of cleaning and containment work under the rule was based on only nine responses from contractors, and that they weren’t even a good sample of the contractors queried but just the first nine received. Further, an EPA science advisory committee reported that limitations in the Agency’s data for estimating intelligence quotient changes in children exposed to lead dust during renovations would not adequately support a rigorous cost benefit analysis. The results were “not statistically valid or nationally representative,” the science committee found. EPA responded that it did not believe it was cost effective to review the cost benefit study.

Locally, the City Council finalized zoning changes in Woodhaven and Richmond Hill that will limit multifamily construction except on a few major corridors. Further proof that our elected officials don’t really want more housing if it disturbs existing constituents.

The first reports on residential energy benchmarking indicate that older buildings are more efficient than new ones and that the worst performing neighborhoods seem to correlate with high asthma rates — which may correlate with poverty and/or public housing and/or old boilers, but details need to be analyzed. The full report should be available here later today or Monday.

Some of the energy data analysis may be aided by census data put online this week by the City Planning Department. The Census Fact Finder lets you search the latest federal demographic information by census tract or neighborhood. We had to laugh at one broker who noted on seeing the release that he could probably lose his license for giving the information directly to prospective buyers or renters, but not for giving them the government link.

Builders and owners in New York have received $169,280 in manufacturers rebates from the NYSBA Rebate Program for stuff they were buying anyway. DID YOU GET YOUR SHARE? All you have to do is compare what you have purchased for new construction or renovation against the dozens of participating manufacturers and file a form. You don’t even need receipts. Free money. Check it out. The deadline for first half purchases is August 24th.

Several ABO members have already responded to our appeal on behalf of the Ronald McDonald House of New York, and by now you should all have received the letter from President Michael Kerr and President Emeritus Jerry Belson explaining our goal  — but a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is the first of two new trucks being delivered, and the kids are counting on us to help pay for them.

These vans are used to take patients and their families to and from their hospital appointments.

The vans we purchased four years ago helped to extend the lives of many children.  When we started fundraising, the House only had one van.  As a result, many of the residents of the House were unable to make their appointments.  The addition of a second van made a big improvement.

Both vans are ready to be replaced.  Our goal is to raise $80,000.

Please join us in helping to improve the lives of families who have children who suffer from cancer.  Your contribution will make a difference.  We have already seen the benefits of our efforts four years ago and intend to do the same again.

Helping kids associations can be done in various ways, including monetary donations or donating clothes like shabbos robes or other clothes. Monetary donations can provide essential resources and support for the organization’s programs and initiatives.

Donating clothes, such as shabbos robes, can help provide children with much-needed clothing for special occasions. Both options contribute to enhancing the well-being and quality of life for children in need, making a positive impact on their lives.

Please make out your contributions to:

Ronald McDonald House

and send it to the ABO office.

C/O Dan Margulies
Associated Builders and Owners
80 Maiden Lane, Suite 1503
New York, NY 10038

Thank you.

The City Department of Finance today issued new rules for filing Income and Expense Reports that will add requirements for unsold co-op and condo income but may eliminate some annual rent roll reporting.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/pdf/final%20rules/filing_income_expense_statements2012.pdf