Editorial
Sense of Urgency

When the RIOC Board of Directors met Thursday morning, there was a muddled dissonance when talk turned to the requirements of the new Public Authorities Accountability Law and the deals being worked on for Island House and Westview. (A report, quoting Board members extensively, is on page 10.)

Deborah Beck took the lead in asking for guidance and clarification on how the Board will handle the Westview and Island House deals that are now pending – so pending, in fact, that both deals have reached the "LOI" (letter of agreement) stage. But each depends on a certain amount of git-go on the part of RIOC and its Board, because both deals depend on RIOC agreeing to ground-lease extensions within a reasonable time frame. The owner groups will not wait forever to complete deals with residents.

The longest-serving members of the Board, David Kraut and Patrick Stewart, were largely in key with Beck’s concern over time. Both seemed to favor fairly aggressive interpretations of the leeway provided in the Public Authorities Law – flexibility embodied in language having to do with the public health, safety, and welfare. No one is likely to argue that public safety and welfare would be enhanced by any deal that would put the occupants of nearly 800 apartments on the street, looking for replacement affordable housing. It’s patently obvious that the public welfare – the welfare of those apartment dwellers – is best served by avoiding disruption, which means keeping their apartments affordable. That, in turn, means purchase of the buildings by the resident groups that have cut deals with the owners.

It’s important for the Island as a whole, too. Dislocation of those families and the wholesale breaking of community ties would not serve any public good. There will be change; everybody understands that. But the RIOC Board has the power to keep the pace of change reasonable.

And that means RIOC and the RIOC Board must get in stride and pick up the pace. Affordable home ownership for 700-plus families is within reach.

Yet, there seemed to be no sense of urgency for Board Chair Judith Calogero, the Commissioner of DHCR (the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal). Of all the Board members, she seemed least familiar with the status of the deals, unclear on whether home ownership could fit the affordability mandate in the General Development Plan, and prepared to wait for clarity.

The WIRE likes the stance of another resident Board member, Michael Shinozaki, who has an aggressive interpretation of the law that starts with a recognition of the State’s obligations here with regard to affordable housing – contractual obligations that come first, followed by finding ways to honor them while observing the provisions of the law.

There’s an election in a little over two weeks. Things will then start to change. To avoid the molasses pace of waiting for a new administration to make the changes it will want at RIOC, this Board, as now constituted, should move now to agree on ground-lease extensions that will help the Island House and Westview deals happen.

DL