Who’s in the Fight

We are the HDFC Coalition, a 100% volunteer organization consisting solely of HDFC homeowners, whose principal objective is to protect all HDFCs from forced suffocating re-regulation, and save them from eventual financial demise. Our track record of over 30 years of fighting for HDFCs speaks for itself. 

On the other side are powerful groups, including opportunistic politicians, predatory non-profits, and real estate developers – flush with cash and salivating over our properties – many in prime locations. 

For example, UHAB has long had HDFCs in its sights—not to empower homeowners, but to control them. As a City-funded nonprofit receiving millions annually in HPD contracts, UHAB stands to gain even more under the City’s regulatory agreement, which requires HDFCs to pay for outside “monitors” like UHAB itself. UHAB is pushing a policy that would force struggling HDFC co-ops to bankroll its own organization—turning affordable homeownership into a permanent revenue stream for bureaucrats and nonprofits, not the residents who built these communities. 

After multiple failed attempts over the past decade to strip HDFC homeowners of their rights through legislation, UHAB shifted tactics—creating AHIFA, a supposed “voice” of HDFC shareholders that is, in reality, a front for UHAB itself. AHIFA falsely presents itself as “a community of HDFC co-op members united in the mission to safeguard affordable living spaces and champion housing justice,” when in fact it serves UHAB’s agenda: to gain control over HDFCs, legitimize the City’s push for a coercive regulatory agreement, and secure yet another stream of funding at the expense of the very homeowners it claims to represent.

Below is a side-by-side comparison between HDFC Coalition and UHAB/AHIFA.

Leadership

HDFC Coalition

Small group of volunteers, long-time HDFC homeowners.

UHAB/AHIFA

Paid UHAB staff, ex-HPD bureaucrats & non-profit principals, a handful of HDFC homeowners.

Track record / History

HDFC Coalition

Founded in 1992 by HDFC homeowners to protect HDFC homeowners’ interests. Fought off several attempts at destructive re-regulation by legislation, including: 

  • DeBlasio’s plan in 2016
  • Betty Little’s bill in 2017
  • Harvey Epstein draft bill in 2020

UHAB/AHIFA

Founded in 2020, after attempts at re-regulation by legislation failed, to bolster the efforts of HPD, UHAB, and various other non-profits to coerce HDFCs to sign an oppressive, unworkable, and ultimately destructive regulatory agreement.

Membership

HDFC Coalition

Thousands of HDFC homeowners.

UHAB/AHIFA

Several dozen individuals.

Main objective

HDFC Coalition

Ensure continued affordability, long-term preservation, fair treatment, and self-determination for HDFC homeowners by securing a permanent tax exemption for all HDFCs in exchange for agreeing to continue abiding by the current affordability restrictions.

UHAB/AHIFA

Re-regulate HDFCs dramatically by forcing them to sign a 40-year regulatory agreement in exchange for extending the DAMP cap tax break (and under a threat that they will otherwise be subject to full taxes while having to remain affordable), effectively turning them into public housing (but without public funding), ensuring their financial demise. It’s a Godfather-style offer HDFC’s “can’t refuse.” Along with other City contractors run by former HPD officials, they profit from the destruction of HDFCs, serving as mandatory board monitors, exclusive marketing and sales agents, and financiers.

Proposal

HDFC Coalition

HDFC Self-Determination, Preservation, and Affordability Act (S880/A2707, introduced in 2024 by Robert Jackson and Al Taylor, currently in the Housing Committees of the Senate and the House.

UHAB/AHIFA

Regulatory agreement with far more restrictive provisions than the current regime.

Summary of the main provision of the proposal

HDFC Coalition

Jackson-Taylor bill:

  • Permanent tax exemption/abatement in exchange for abiding by the current, income-based affordability restrictions
  • Simple and workable regulatory regime, including:
    • Annual certification-based compliance mechanism
    • Conferring on HPD the power to withhold tax exemption for violations
  • HDFCs retain the right to self-determination, including running their buildings without outside interference and deciding whether to opt into the program or attempt to dissolve and reincorporate (an extremely expensive and arduous process)
  • Updating the law to allow the City to forgive or restructure tax arrears for HDFCs facing foreclosure.

UHAB/AHIFA

Regulatory Agreement:

  • Apartment sale price caps.
  • Asset caps on purchasers.
  • 270 days/year primary residence requirement.
  • Sales must go through Housing Connect – the City’s lottery-based affordable housing portal.
  • HDFCs must hire an HPD-approved board monitor, who approves sales, sublets, and any financial transactions.
  • Homeowners’ children cannot continue to live in the apartment unless they are poor enough.

Main effects of the proposal if adopted/passed

HDFC Coalition

  • Vast majority – if not all – HDFCs remaining in the program and in NYC’s affordable housing stock
  • Ensuring fair and sustainable affordability: 
    • HDFC co-ops retain the ability to replenish their reserve funds from flip taxes and repair/maintain their mostly aged buildings without imposing a heavy financial burden on shareholders.
    • HDFC homeowners get to continue living in the apartments they owned for decades – at affordable maintenance costs, with dignity and without humiliation.
    • Qualified buyers get to buy HDFC apartments 60%+ below the market.
    • The City gets to lock in all or nearly all HDFCs in its affordable housing stock and can focus on other much needed affordable housing programs.  
  • Ensures long term economic viability of HDFCs without public assistance. 
  • Ensures fundamental fairness: HDFCs retain the ability to obtain private financing and run their buildings without oppressive outside regulation
  • Clarifies legal status of HDFCs, enabling HDFC homeowners to continue living in their homes without a constant threat of their homes being taken away.

UHAB/AHIFA

  • Sales caps would render HDFCs limited equity coops ineligible to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and, by extension to most private lenders, resulting in:
    • HDFCs losing access to private financing and be limited to obtaining financing either from the City or specialized banks at far worse commercial terms.
    • Prospective buyers not being able to obtain a mortgage from most private lenders.
  • Sales caps and asset caps would deprive HDFCs of the ability to replenish the reserve funds necessary to maintain their buildings through:
    • Slowing down apartment sales at HDFCs to a grind.
    • Reducing dramatically the amounts HDFCs can obtain through flip taxes after apartment sales.
  • Requirement to sell units through HousingConnect or another non-profit’s affordable housing portal and by the HPD’s approval would: 
    • Erode communities because homeowners would no longer be able to choose their neighbors and would be forced to accept HPD-picked buyers.
    • Unjustly enrich UHAB and other housing non-profits that under RAs serve as exclusive marketing and sales agents. 
  • The 270-day/year primary residency requirement would put an unnecessary administrative and emotional strain on homeowners and boards that would need to monitor homeowners’ movements and act to evict “offenders”
  • Mandatory board monitors:
    • Would obstruct and delay the work of the boards, causing frustration and damage, as monitors are generally unfamiliar with HDFCs they are “monitoring.”  
    • Are paid by the HDFCs monitored, despite not being wanted or needed by any HDFC homeowners.
    • Are only favored by UHAB and other ex-HPD connected non-profits that stand to profit from being awarded monitoring contracts.
    • Are deeply unfair and humiliating to thousands of HDFC homeowners who built their homes from uninhabitable buildings and ran them for decades without outside help.
    • Take away HDFCs’ ability to run their buildings according to their own needs.   
  • The financial qualification requirement for the children of homeowners is demeaning and fundamentally unfair. It essentially takes away the homeowner’s property rights. It also fails as a matter of policy as it threatens the heirs with losing their home unless they stay poor.

Who benefits from the proposal?

HDFC Coalition

  • Existing HDFC homeowners, predominantly from minority and traditionally disadvantaged groups, who would: 
    • benefit from continued affordability.
    • get to keep their hard-earned properties and govern them with dignity and self-determination.
    • get to opt into a regulatory regime that provides a fair and workable regulatory framework allowing them to keep their HDFCs long-term economically viable.
    • keep an opportunity to build generational wealth, instead of it being taken away from them.
  • Income-qualified prospective HDFC homeowners who get to buy a primary residence in NYC at affordable prices (60% below market on average).
  • NYC as it gets to keep all or nearly all HDFCs in its affordable housing stock.
  • HPD as it gets to benefit from a simple and workable regulatory regime, gain enforcement powers it currently doesn’t have, and divert its scarce resources elsewhere.

UHAB/AHIFA

  • UHAB and other ex-HPD housing non-profits realizing substantial profits from “monitoring,” exclusive sales, marketing, and financing rights.
  • Opportunistic politicians and ambitious regulators taking short-term credit for the regulatory agreement’s wide acceptance and hailing it as an “affordable housing success” regardless of their assured eventual demise.
  • Real estate developers who get to snag properties in prime locations in NYC.