Access to Building Garden

First steps: Make an appointment to visit the managing agent's office to read minutes and whatever else they will hand you. Also, you should have a book in your possession called the offering plan. If so open and start looking for information about the gardens. If not, your managing agent will have a copy you can review at their office.

Anything is possible, but probably the gardens are associated strictly with the apartment in question. But who knows.

I personally would do the above before calling a lawyer, because that's what they would probably suggest on your first call. You are trying to find out if apartment X has a bunch more shares than everyone else to cover the garden, or if apartment X just kinda took over in a quiet coup.

Depending on what you find out, remember that mediation is available in NYC for co-op disputes.

Property manager: "There is no formal or written policy or rule stating residents cannot go in the garden". Me: "So then why can't I go into the garden today?" PM: ::chuckles:: "Well, residents cannot go into the garden". Me: "So why can CERTAIN residents go into the garden but I cannot?" PM: ::chuckles some more:: "We'll have to bring this up with the board".

Property manager: "There is no formal or written policy or rule stating residents cannot go in the garden". .... there is your answer.

However, this being a coop you would need to bring the issue up at the next meeting. The board can't officially make a statement on the policy, bc there is no restrictive policy.

From my experience gardens and courtyards always have specific hours of usage. Typically this could be included in the bilaws / contract you reviewed when purchasing the unit. So you could ask the board or other coop members to bring a motion to the floor during a coop meeting ( I think it needs to be a general body meeting rather than a closed coop Board of directors meeting) . This motion would be to the request an amendment/addendum to the bilaws to add policies relating to the garden in question. For this to happen you need to meet quorum ( have enough members of he building present), then present the motion, which would still need to be voted on to even be considered ( ie you need to vote to even think about changing the bilaws), then if enough people want to take a second vote on changing the bilaws.

Step 1: attend general body meeting ( which makes quorum)
Step 2: During the meeting present motion to change bilaw to include garden info
Step 3: You need others to support your request. So During this 1st meeting have a vote if coop members want to consider supporting you and your request to amend bilaws ( have friends on your side to vote in favor of considering your motion)
Step 4: If during this first meeting you have enough votes in your favor, then a vote to take a vote on amending the bilaws will be scheduled for future meeting
Step 5: Meeting where coop members hear the consideration ( then there are usually 1 to several other meetings following this, in discussion of whether the bilaw change should even be Considered! I know this is the really down side of coops. Silly policies and small changes are ridiculous )
Step 6: Have another meeting and vote about where or not to take the bilaw review into consideration
Step 7: If the motion for bilaw change passes, which it probably wont bc not enough ppl will vote in the previous vote, then you would now need to have yet Another general body meeting ( which needs to have a specific % of residents attend) where you would vote on the final outcome of whether or not to change the bilaws.

Furthermore this doesn't include more difficult process on agree what the new policy should say... So in the end your prospect of garden usage doesn't look good. Sorry : (

Forgot to mention " From my experience gardens and courtyards always have specific hours of usage. " Well they almost always are included somewhere in the original coop draft ( as they pose property liability). So either the info you are looking for can be found in some old document from the original constitution, bilaws etc... or you have an intentionally cruel and corrupt board which may have chose to originally exclude the garden in the bilaw knowing it would be exceptionally difficult change. and seemingly self serving.

What I can say is the Board Members can not just decide how to change the garden policy without a general body vote (unless otherwise stated). So they could say something like " we had a board member meeting and decided the garden is only for the board members, or the garden now belongs to XYZ apt." They need to call a vote and get approval from the building. Something like what I just described would almost certainly be a violation of the bilaws, and the Board Members individually could be held criminally liable if they did so.

In one condo in which I lived, the Board set restrictions on the hours and permitted activities in the garden via the house rules. A lot of people complained because children were not allowed to play in the garden and parties were banned there. The reason that the Board held firm on this was that 50% of the apartments had all of their bedrooms facing the garden. This was solely done to accommodate people's working hours and the sleeping times of young children. The building already had a party room and a play room, so the house rules indicated that the garden was solely for the "quiet enjoyment" of residents.

HOWEVER, since one Board member had been maintaining the garden, a garden committee was formed. A plot was set aside for a garden set up by children. This worked out as an agreeable compromise.

How are you prevented from getting into the yard? Is there a locked gate or something?

You might want to volunteer to help the board member who's maintaining the gardens. Plenty of access that way.

Yes, just imagine - there's more litter all of a sudden in this garden, who knows how it got there, but they probably need someone else to help clean up that litter.

Thanks for all the comments, much appreciated, and made me realize some of the other potential perspectives that might be involved. There could be liability or maintenance or noise issues with more people using the garden. Even so, it can't really justify access being given to just one person. NWT, yes there is a high fence with a padlock on it.

> There could be liability or maintenance or noise issues

Of course, there are liability and maintenance and noise issues involved in just about everything. If we all avoided noise, maintenance, and liability, I'm not sure where we'd go - even C0lumbia C0unty only deals with one of those three. Don't give up the fight.

If it's an interior courtyard type garden, noise for the surrounding apartments, and possibly privacy for those same apartments, may be a concern.

It isn't. It is bound on 3 sides by the building and the fourth sides faces the street.

Why not gauge interest by sending around a petition to your fellow shareholders? If there are enough folks who want the garden bylaws to be reconsidered, you need to take it to the annual shareholder meeting and try to pass an amendment there.

It sounds like 175 W 93rd: a little street-facing courtyard, with fence to street and surrounded by apartments. Looks as if there's a little garden in the back yard too.

The question of who gets a key to the street gate probably isn't in the bylaws or house rules. Just a policy of the board's. The shareholders who want to wander in the garden will throw their oar in, as will the 1st-floor shareholders who overlook the garden, so the board will juggle and try to keep everybody happy.

Also, the shareholder who's now doing the garden labor for free, on condition that everybody else not be allowed to tromp through and pick flowers, etc., will give it up. Then the building will either have to pay a landscaper to maintain it, or let it go back to weeds.

NWT, impressed by your knowledge. Good points, you've pointed to a larger issue here, the long term plan for the space. Free labor can't go on forever.

>Free labor can't go on forever.

Wrong.

Labor is free when the laborer considers it a hobby.

What I meant was, people don't live forever, so in the future the building will have to pay unless another hobbyist should happen to rise up. Anyhow, even with all of the good points that have made, there is still an issue of basic fairness than shouldn't be dismissed,

>unless another hobbyist should happen to rise up.

You think no one in the building wants to tend the garden? How about you?

No idea. As for me, I've never met a plant that I couldn't kill from poor management. That and I'm away from home often for months at a time are good reasons that I should be out of the running.

Success: stepped foot in the garden
Failure: "I don't give a shit about you" -board member who controls the garden.
Garden gate was open, doorman said now is a good time to make your move. I walk over, walk inside, start talking to the board member who controls the garden. He is hard of hearing, about 90 years old. I start telling him kindly how sorry I am about his wife who is in hospice. He starts telling me how annoying he thinks I am because he's "heard all about me and my concern about wanting to go in the garden". I keep going back to talking about his wife, which I think he actually appreciated. Then I asked about the garden and he said about 15 reasons why we can't use it (it's too loud, someone could fall down the stairs, an AC could fall, there might be rats, etc.). He said that the person in "that apartment" while pointing will be angry if people go in ... then I told him I'm friends with someone who lives on the first floor who would also like access to the garden ... he just sighed ... then he said "let's talk about this again next spring" and I said no, let's talk about this now. then he said "I don't give a shit about you or how you feel". Then I kindly said I want to handle this now. And he said "what, do you want to like take care of the plants or something?" and I replied by saying, of course I wouldn't mind doing anything - it's our communal space and we should all care for it. So he angrily goes over to a bottle of miracle grow, shows me how to use it, and then throws the key at me. And I said, I appreciate you giving me the key but I am not actually allowed to enter this space. You will have to go tell the doormen/super and give them permission. And he stormed out and said "FINE". So I left and then the doorman and I sent the super an email explaining what happened, very nicely, and said board member is now granting me access to the garden to help feed the plants miracle grow because he has limited time since he is with his sick wife..... TBD on the results.

I'd like to guage the interest of shareholdes in participating in the garden decision making and workload with a special meeting. I honestly don't even know where to begin. Should i type up some "addendum" to the building/house rules? and model it after similar ones i've acquired from nearby buildings? Then print it out and put it in the board box ... The board President hasn't responded via email or phone after 3 attempts.

To shut me up, the board member who controls the garden said i can use it "to water the plants" and just me. But that's not the point. I want to understand the process of changing/creating a house rule. I can't exactly call/email/write to the people in charge because they are nonresponsive, our management sucks, and our super sucks.

The friend in the first floor apartment and I were joking that when I am in the garden we'll have a secret knock and I'll set up a ladder for her to climb down through her window. - it'll be like the garden version of a speakeasy!

cc2015, anything to add in light of my story?

OK, rc, your intel has revealed that this is garden occupancy is probably the result of a coup, instead of an apartment controlling the garden because things were originally set up that way.

But you live in a co-op. This means you are a renter with an equity interest (a stock certificate) in your landlord's company. You have a landlord, but your landlord answers to the tenants in a way ordinary tenants do not. You have a lease you can read for information on all the rights you don't have.

That said---how you move forward depends on your building's governing docs, in theory. There may be a backstory here that you don't know that explains some things. Sounds like 90 year old man has some pangs of garden guilt.

What I would do is write a letter, certified mail, to the board c/o the managing agent. The president can ignore you calls but she or he cannot ignore this. You are essentially providing notice that there is a problem of access to building amenities. If you could quote the proprietary lease, or the governing docs, anywhere, in support of your position, that would help.

I'm interested in what others say but I believe in a co-op, if the board wants to restrict access to the garden to caretakers only (which sounds like it might be the policy?), then by becoming a caretaker you should have equal access. My take is the board has the power to restrict access to garden caretakers and to prohibit picnics, etc.

Looking at Google street-view again, the front garden is maybe 25'x30', at cellar level, with an iron stairway down from the street gate. Looks like a bunch of potted plants. The back garden is bigger but is also at the bottom of a pit surrounded by buildings.

Anyway, being a pest to the old guy who does the gardening isn't going to get you anywhere.

You elected the board to use its best judgement, not respond to every one-off crank in the building who wants something. They're probably thinking "WTF would want to loiter at the bottom of a little 150'-deep courtyard? Next."

Make 150 copies of (1) a form letter saying "I think we all should have access to the yards. It'd be a desirable amenity." Do not include any whining about the shareholder who's now doing all the work. (2) a note asking the shareholder to sign the form letter if they agree. (3) a stamped envelope addressed to the board president, or an envelope addressed to you to be left with the doorman. Put the packet under every apartment's door.

Or, wait until the next annual meeting, raise the issue there, and see whether you get any support from other shareholders.