Exclusive use of the garage in a coop?

why not rent the spots to the highest bidder?

Quite interesting idea!
Sealed envelope bids?
I doubt that such a resolution could pass this since the board and the coop might be accused of "discrimination" based on income (I know...) , but I love it.

Same thing happened in a relative's building. However, they are paying on ly $150 in a prime area of the UWS. Since 1/4 of the license plates are out of state and their slots are not used overnight or on the weekends, there was a suspicion that these slots were being rented out at a profit. Each story was more outrageous than the next justifying this: they were staying at their summer home, a co-owner was working nights in NJ, traveling job of one of co-owners ... Meanwhile, there has been absolutely NO turnover on these slots in over 20 years.

$180/month in our building, but all around would cost $450 +taxes or more. Some of shareholders are also in arrears and still get to keep their parking spot.

Why in the world would the coop do any of this at a discount? You might see less clamoring for those spots if they were market rate. Like storage lockers, it is pretty typical that these sorts of amenities are first come, first served, but a 50% discount on in-house parking is asking for corruption. The idea of rotating makes no sense to me -- changing garages every few years benefits no one. If this is prime UES, the spots are probably worth $800/mo. The coop is leaving a quarter million dollars a year on the table by charging half that.

nyc_sport: I agree 100%, but I want to find a solution. First would be to reach market rates and second rotation since honestly first come first served after 30/40 years gets quite unfair.

actually even more than 40 years as I just discovered that over 10 shareholders have a parking spot since the early '60, so that would make approx 60 years... They gotta love the building and happy to see that they can still drive, but I mean..

nyork, Do you have any information about the parking spot allocation when it took place? There may be board minutes or some document which says who this spot is allocated to. The board should be able to clarify this for you. Raising the rent will be hard as the board is likely full with people who own the parking spot. If even you ask for a shareholder vote, it will be hard as typically only half the people will vote and the other half will be existing owners and their friends in the building.

The frugal 80 year olds that have had those spots since 1960 probably are not willing to pay $10k/year for them. I am going to hazard a guess that some of your unit owners are renting these out or providing them to relatives who don't live in the building. I suspect if you move these to market rates (or above, given the added convenience of parking in the building) and require vehicles to be registered to the unit owner, a spot with your name on it will be up soon. If I were you, and expected to be a long term resident, I would prefer that the spots be made available based on seniority of tenancy, not some rotation that has you looking for a new spot every few years, probably right when your leg is in a cast or you otherwise could most use the convenience of basement parking.

Hi 300: I am trying to get that kind of information, it took me a while to get to a min knowledge about the current rates and other details. I am talking to other shareholders to put together a group of interest and vote to change this crazy stuff. And yes I suspect that many in the board helped themselves and their friends in the past, but I will try to change this.

Hi nyc_sport,
I agree with the first part, but consider that one could sell the apartment at some point and that without any sort of rotation having a garage doesn't add any value.
The first guy on the list has been waiting for 15 years, if and once he gets his spot there are other 40 people before me and the new shareholders.
So I would say that we should better rotate and offer a spot to all the people in the current waiting list and what is left should be assigned through a lottery or to the highest bidders (with a reserve price). I think that 3 years should be the max allowed, after 3 years we should rotate again and so on. This way a new buyer could reasonably expect to get a parking spot and the garage would be an added value.

How many board members have spots?

See "waste of Corporate Assets".

@nyork825: completely ridiculous, you should definitely get together with your neighbors and get a board seat or two to end this nonsense. The question to ask is, why are the 170 apartment shareholders paying more than they need to in monthly maintenance? Sort this out and those people will be ahead, so it shouldn't be hard to make a case and get some board seats.

I'd give up on the idea of any complex rotation scheme - it should just be market rate, there is no other sensible approach. The parking spaces are worth *more* to people in the building than anybody else because they can get from the spaces to their apartments without going outside and getting wet in bad weather, so they should at *least* be matching what someone outside the building would pay, and they still get that as a nice little bonus.

Basically you want to increase the price until one or more spaces are empty, allowing non-shareholders to participate.

Even if you came up with a rotation scheme, you've still got some odd problems like why non-drivers should be subsidizing drivers, and how to deal with the people that have had the spots for 40 years - if they're back on the same priority level as everybody else, it's not fair, they should be out of rotation for 40 years before they can participate again.

30yrs: pretty much all the previous board members had a spot and they were keeping the rates even lower. The new board is trying to change many things, but they are doing very small changes and I sense that they "fear", not necessarily respect, the previous board members.
bryantpark: yes I am putting together a group and by doing that I also spoke with shareholders that do have a parking spot, needless to say that they hate not just my idea, but me. They said that those spots are theirs and that I won't take anything away from them and of course we have to subsidize. Got lucky that we don't have to pay for the maintenance of their cars. The level of entitlement and arrogance is quite interesting and I thought that discussing with them was just a waste of time, having better things to do. I will just work with the new shareholders and those who are in the waiting list. A few board meetings and nature will take care of the rest. Yes a rotation scheme can be tricky but I don't want to perpetuate their behavior, we will find a way.

If only a minority of shareholders are benefitting from below-market parking rates, I think it would be great if you could vote to bring the prices back to market and let the profits accrue to all shareholders through reduced maintenance.