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Brownstone Cooperatives:An Alternative to Rising Rentsand Landlord BoutsBY PETER HALEYApartment life can mean lengthy bouts with supers and landlords over services and rents as well as having a room with a view. Some apartment dwellers who wish to keep that particular view or leave it for a view somewhere else decide that buying an apartment is the lesser of two evils%u2014spending money on something you own versus spending money on something you don%u2019t own.Buying an apartment is an adjustment to lacking the means or the desire to break away from the herd and set yourself up in a separate house that hopefully will be equipped with lawns and cars. Here in Brooklyn, cooperatives range in size from four-family brownstones to large apartment houses and range in age from those still struggling to be born to 50-year-old veterans like 35 Prospect Park West, while the co-opers themselves range from captains of industry to captains of busboys.Cooperatives develop from two general categories: either the owners themselves decide to sell to the tenants or tenants decide to buy the building on their own. This may sound a little like the %u201c which came first, the chicken or the egg?%u201d line of thinking but in the former situation it means a landlord who wants to give up his job and in the latter it means tenants who have grown more attached to their homes than their landlord has.%u201c When a shoestore or grocery store doesn%u2019t make money, its owner can close up shop. %u201c When a landlord doesn%u2019t make money he has to hold on to the building,\explained Bernd Allen, a local lawyer who has assisted in the co-oping of several local buildings. \landlords who arc losing money on fuel costs and upkeep, a cooperative is a good answer.%u201dAllen gave as an example a brownstone valued at $120,000 where rents of $300-400 (multiplied by 4 apartments) hardly pays for the taxes and an approximate maintenance cost of $1,200 a month. At the same time, for perhaps $ 4 0 ,0 0 0 an apartment, the landlord can take his burden and exchange \profit %u20221 het there is the tenants ease, where ;hc\\ decide that together' they ean out-do their present landlord%u201c W> were afraid that manage merit under the previous rettt laws would raise rents and make it difficult for tenants to pay and so every tenant bought out the landlord seven or eight years ago,%u201d said Pincus Cashman, former tenant president and tenant for 12 years at the 31 -unit luxury apartment house at 27 Prospect Park West.W ANT IT TO BE HOMEPark Slope tenants at 233 and 259 Garfield Place are transforming their eight-unit buildings into one cooperative later this fall and tenant Sam Azadian exnlained his share of the reasons why.%u201c 1 worked in the Slope a.td have stayed in the Slope. 1 want this apartment to be my home, and 1 don%u2019t want to deal with irresponsible management,%u201d said Azadian, who together with other tenants began co-op plans last October.%u201c Despite voluntary rent increases over the years, the owners had done little or nothing so a group of us came together to form a cooperative.%u201dLegally speaking, forming a cooperative is a decision that starts once 35% or more of the building%u2019s tenants decide they want to co-op and those tenants who wish to leave have a year or two years to do so, depending on whether the building is under rent stabilization or rent control respectively. Or in the landlord%u2019s case it begins when he either buys out his tenants or sells them their apartments.Several local brownstone co-op conversions have been undertaken by the landlord. Among the first to do so in Brooklyn Heights was developer Kurt Rash, who turned 56 Garden Place, a former boarding house, and 167 Clinton Street, into cooperatives and then sold them to new tenants.Julius Sirkus, who bought into 56 Garden Place in 1966 after it became one of the Heights first co-ops in 1961, described tenant ownership as a \economical venture%u201d with perhaps 50% of the costs being tax deductible.%u201c Unlike being an owner, costs are shared. So if the boiler goes and a new one is bought, its cost, like the real estate taxes and mortgage interest, is shared,%u201d he explained.And the results are carrying charges amounting to a little more (ban half the rent that one would pay for a three bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights, which is something that you don%u2019t have to take to the bank,%u201d because the sale of the co-op apartment will at least match its purchase price, and judging by the current market, will likely exceed it considerably.BULLISH ON BUYINGAccording to local realtors these days, most would-be co-opers are bullish on buying. Madge Rothzeid. a Park Slope realtor, explained the change.%u201c There was a time a few years ago when the co-op market was very s!i %u201d said Rothzeid.%u201d But now the co-op market is verv lively.%u201dMost present am would be co upe: re upwardly mb lie wageearner %u25a0eking an urban nest, but a s ig n ; i . anl exception are the co-opt\395 (Tin to %u25a0 \\enue, alarge v multiple d clltng that nine yi ago was abandoned by both its landlord and most of the tenants and given up for dead. Councilman Abe Gorges and some local ministers, together with local activists and future tenants, convinced the Federal Housing Association and the Housing Urban Development agency that the building could come back to life as a co-op, primarily for low-income residents, and eight years ago it did just that.It hasn%u2019t been easy, but as tenant vice-chairwoman Pearl Forman explained, co-oping made a %u201c difference.%u201d%u201c There is a difference because with a co-op you have to be concerned with what goes on outside your door,%u201d said Forman. %u201cThe people who live here want to settle and are tired of moving to keep themselves just ahead of%u201cWe were afraid that management wouldraise rents and make it difficult for tenants topay and so every tenant bought out the landlordseven or eight years ago. %u201dghettos or else demolition all the time.%u201dClinton Hill itself already has a cooperative tradition, beginning with 375 Clinton Avenue, a 16-unit building with large-size apartments that converted in the \according to present tenant Rev. Robert Slater. Then there%u2019s Willoughby Walk%u2019s twin 16-storv structures, where tenants bought theii middle income development front the federal government after it had forclosed the mortgage on its former owner.The Clinton Hill co-op movement has helped this neighborhood of oldtime mansions, brownstones, and apartment houses to maintain itself as a vital community. %u201c Behind the facades here are a lot of committed people,%u201d said Slater.IMPROVEMENTS CAMESubstantial improvements have been made in some Clinton Hill co-ops. After contending with an outdated heating system, rotting floors, and leaking windows, 275 Clinton tenants used rents torestore the 28-unit building%u2019s fading glory.%u201c Wc have put in new heaving, storm windows, pointed the outside walls, and put in hardwood floors,\said George Sailor, of 275 Clinton Avenue. %u201c We%u2019ve substantially increased the value of the building while enjoying comparatively lower rents and equity.\Of course, not all of local cooperatives arc Cinderella stories; some have existed as successful co-ops for decades. One of the largest and reputedly the oldest cooperative in Brooklyn is 35 Prospect Park West. Once the site of Coney Island amusement park magnate Tilyou family%u2019s mansion, 35 Prospect Park West came into life in 1928 and promptly became a co-op. Situated across from Prospect Park, the oldtime co-op continues to be %u201c very sought after,%u201d according to tenant Donald Moore, just as it was during the %u201930s.According to Samuel Spivak, a tenant here eight years, thereasons arc clear.%u201c In the 1930s, there was no new construction in the area thanks to the Depression and so as a cooperative 35 was a sound investment.%u201d he said. \property values plus being in a designated landmark area, you%u2019re getting a substantial return on what amounts to a $50,000 investment because the carrying charges aren't commersurate with the high rents in the area.%u201dWith the Ex-Lax factory on Atlantic Avenue about to be reborn as a co-op and other large apartment buildings like 9 Prospect Park West likely to follow suit, co-oping is a trend that is likely to continue%u2014in all sizes and categories, but for a very simple reason: %u201c All you have to do is look at it from an economic point of view, and if you can see an advantage for you to do it, you do it,%u201d said Azadian, one of the growing crop of future urban homesteaders.