N E W S MARCH 10 L E H A V R E Schumer pushes for co-op, condo Sandy relief BY MELISSA CHAN New York’s senior senator has joined the ranks of leaders pushing for relief to storm-damaged co-ops and condos. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer penned a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last Wednesday asking the agency to establish Sandy relief program guidelines for co-ops and condos. Co-op and condo owners currently cannot receive Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants for Sandy-infl icted damages because they are categorized as “business associations,” according to elected federal offi cials. The title makes them eligible for federal loans but not grants. “After Sandy, FEMA was able to help many communities. However, due to infl exible bureaucratic rules, co-op and condo homeowners were left in the wake,” Schumer said. The Stafford Act, which governs how FEMA responds to major disasters, does not include the word “co-op” in the law, according to Congressmember Steve Israel. But there is no statute that purposefully bans co-op owners from being eligible for grants, a privilege given to homeowners. Schumer called on HUD offi cials to use Community Development Block Grants Disaster Recovery funds to help co-op and condo owners repair and rebuild. HUD allocated $5.4 billion to the recovery program early last week. New Yorkers are eligible to receive about $3.5 billion of that total. 10 LEHAVRE COURIER | MARCH 2013 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM Some Queens co-ops suffered $1 million in damages, including Cryder Point Co-ops, a waterfront community which has to repair its shambled pier. More than half of the total buildings in Glen Oaks Village endured “moderate to severe shingle loss,” according to Bob Friedrich, the co-op’s president. The co-op will have to shell out $250,000 in infrastructural damages. And nearly 3,000 Mitchell-Lama co-ops in the Rockaways are forced to shoulder repair costs, said Dolores Orr, co-op owner and president of the Rockaway Beach Civic Association. “It is astonishing to me that residential co-op buildings are not being afforded any fi nancial assistance in the recovery from Sandy,” she said. “We are homeowners just like those who live in … family houses.” Mayor delivers last State of the City address BY HELEN KLEIN It may have been Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s last opportunity to deliver the State of the City address, but one thing was clear, it was no swan song. Addressing a crowd at downtown Brooklyn’s Barclays Center — arguably the largest development to come to fruition while he occupied City Hall – the mayor spent a full hour going over the achievements of his nearly 12 years at the helm of the city of New York, and promised to keep pushing forward during the last 320 days of his administration. There was a theatricality to the entire event, with performances by the Brooklynettes dance squad and their junior counterparts. With the stage set, the mayor primed the pump for both his elaborate recap and his announcements, which ranged from the clearly popular (support for gun control, immigration reform and the DREAM Act – all of which engendered loud applause) to the considerably less so (a long defense of stop and frisk as well as of the city’s position in the protracted school bus strike). Probably the most discussed announcement beforehand was a proposed ban on Styrofoam take-out containers, something that the mayor said he would work on with the City Council. Another major announcement was the administration’s decision to promote electric cars, adding 50 to the city’s fl eet of vehicles and pushing for a third of New York’s taxis to be electric by 2020. In addition, Bloomberg said the city would “pilot curbside vehicle chargers that will allow drivers to fi ll their battery in as little as 30 minutes.” The goal, he said, is to “create up to 10,000 parking spots for electric vehicles over the next seven years.” The mayor also announced “an executive order waiving all city fees for Sandy-related repair work,” and the creation of a panel to “design eight new high schools based on the most promising college readiness strategies” for students mostly from neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and low rates of college readiness. In addition to citywide initiatives, the mayor spoke about current and future development projects in each borough. In Queens, Bloomberg touched on Cornell’s applied science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island, calling it “the most exciting economic development project our city has even undertaken,” and the future of Willets Point. “At Willets Point - ignored by the city since Robert Moses failed to turn it into parkland - we’ll work with Borough President Helen Marshall to begin the process of cleaning it up and bringing jobs and open space to the community - and down the road, hopefully even a convention center.” Concluding his speech, Bloomberg said: “By working to fi nish all this work, we can create a new beginning for the city we love. But for now, the unfi nished business awaits. Or, in the words of a poet: we have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep.” -With additional reporting by Cristabelle Tumola
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