BY JOSH ROGERS | Southbridge Towers’ vote two months ago to privatize has been accepted by the state attorney general and the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal, according to leaders at the complex.
“My opposition of 25 years is over,” Victor Papa, a former Southbridge president of the board, told Downtown Express the day before Thanksgiving. “I’m opting in,” meaning he will be taking full ownership rights of his apartment.
Sometime next year, Southbridge residents are expected to be allowed to sell their apartments on the open market now that they have voted to leave the Mitchell-Lama middle class housing program.
Wally Dimson, president of the board, said last week that he has been notified by the attorney general’s office that after a review of the vote, it has been certified, and a mailing would soon go out to residents allowing them to opt in to the new program.
The 1,651 apartments at the complex just south of the Brooklyn Bridge range in values from about $300,000 to over $1 million, according to the official appraisal.
Residents who choose not to opt in, can continue paying rent and will be subject to rent increases under rent stabilization rules. Senior citizens currently receiving SCRIE rent subsidies will be able to continue under that program.
Dimson, who was out of the country Nov. 26, said he was “very pleased” to hear Papa had dropped his opposition.
Papa and other privatization opponents had challenged the results of the vote, which ended Sept. 30. Southbridge voted overwhelmingly to privatize, 1,082 to 373, but under the Mitchell-Lama law, it was only 10 votes more than were needed to pass.
Another privatization opponent, Paul Hovitz, president of the Southbridge Towers Shareholders Association, said he’s far from convinced that the vote was proper and that attorney Barry Mallin is reviewing the letter from the state housing agency on behalf of some privatization opponents.
“We hoped, but did not really expect, D.H.C.R. to do the in-depth investigation that would allay questions of a biased result.” Hovitz wrote in an email to Downtown Express last week. “In fact, it appears that D.H.C.R. asked Honest Ballot…if they did everything by the rules. They said yes and D.H.C.R. simply took their word for it. A little like asking the fox about the hen house.”
Hovitz, who has known Papa for decades, said he was more than surprised to read about his ally’s change of heart in a Nov. 26 article posted on downtownexpress.com.
“Frankly, I was bowled over,” Hovitz said Tuesday.
Papa, said he was at peace with accepting defeat.
“It’s over,” he said. “I’m liberated.”
