Proprietary Lease Amendment Passes

The third time’s a charm. After two failed attempts to amend the proprietary lease and extend its expiration date, the amendment has been successfully passed.
“It passed overwhelmingly,” said Board President Bob Ricken.
Although the resolution has received enough votes to pass, voting is technically still open until December 3.
Previously, the proprietary lease was set to expire on September 30, 2050. However, it now has been extended so that it will not expire until September 30, 2090.
“Although 42 years is a long period of time until the lease expires, in banking circles it is relatively short,” North Shore Towers attorney Errol Brett wrote in a letter to the community. “Banks will not give long-term loans [of] 30 or 35 years unless they are assured that the lease will still be in existence at the end of that loan period.”
During past elections for the Board of Directions, the amendment had been placed on the ballot. Although it had not been actually defeated, the amendment did not receive the required 2/3s votes necessary to pass. This time around, the Board of Directors decided to do a focused effort on getting the amendment passed by sending shareholders a ballot to vote specifically on this single issue. A similar process was used to pass the flip tax resolution.
Board member Phyllis Goldstein spearheaded the efforts. Helen and Bob Bader served as the contact for Building Two and Board member Chuck Robbins for Building One. Other residents also volunteered to help get the word out.
Passing the proprietary lease amendment was a unanimous recommendation by the Board of Directors.
In order to celebrate passing the amendment, a party was recently held at Towers on the Green on November 10 to thank those who volunteered with the efforts.
“To me it was a tremendous sense of support from the community because it had gone down twice before,” Ricken said of the amendment passing. “I feel it really demonstrates the trust that the community had in the Board.”