Penn South

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The Penn South cooprative as seen from the Empire State Building

Penn South is a limited equity housing cooperative in Manhattan, New York City.

1 History
2 Rochdale Principles
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

In the 1950s, there was an urgent need for moderate-income housing in New York City. The United Housing Foundation (UHF), under the leadership of Abraham Kazan, began working with unions, local and state government officials to garner the support necessary to build new cooperative housing. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was drawn to the notion of housing based on the cooperative model of self-help and mutual aid that the UHF presented to them in 1957. Herman J. Jessor was the architect who designed the complex.

In fact, the ILGWU (now merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union to form UNITE) went on to provide much of the moral and financial support needed to undertake the project. They sponsored the construction of 2,820 apartment units in Chelsea that would ultimately become Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc. (commonly known as Penn South).

From its very inception, Penn South has operated as a limited-equity cooperative. It is owned and operated exclusively for the benefit of the member-shareholders, who are the occupants of the apartments. Each member has an equity investment in proportion to the size of the unit he/she occupies. Each apartment constitutes one unit with one vote, irrespective of the size of the apartment or number of shareholders who reside there. The principle of "one unit-one vote" distinguishes cooperatives from other corporations and safeguards the democratic control of the organization.

The City of New York has helped to keep Penn South affordable from the very beginning. In 1961, the City granted the development a twenty-year abatement of real estate taxes and in 1981 extended that abatement an additional five years through 1986.

In 1986, when the abatement of real estate taxes was to expire, Penn South took a historic vote to decide its future. Seventy-six percent of cooperators came out to vote, with 68 percent of those who voted choosing a 25-year phase-in of real estate taxes; 27 percent voted for a 10-year phase-in of taxes; only 5 percent voted to do away with the tax abatement altogether and allow the development to go private. Similarly, Coop Village on Manhattan's Lower East Side voted at that time, for the ten year option, and has since converted to a private cooperative.

The initial purpose of Penn South was to provide good housing at a moderate cost. Sixty-five percent of the development is open space -- gardens, walks, grass, trees, play space for children, and sitting areas for adults.

[edit] Rochdale Principles

The history of the cooperaticve movement dates back 150 years to a little town named Rochdale, located near Manchester, England. In 1844, 28 workers formed the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, the first cooperative store. Today, there are over 110 million cooperative members in the United States alone that adhere to the standard knows as the Rochdale Principles.