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Westmoreland Association, Inc.ORGANIZED 1917 & INCORPORATED 1924 251-31 42 Avenue, Little Neck, NY 11363

nd

718-224-7256www.LittleNeck.net/Westmoreland

westmorelandassn@aol.com

Walter Mugdan

President

Victor Dadras

Vice President

Gary Savage

Treasurer

Charles Manna

Secretary

DIRECTORS:

David DiazPeter Reinharz

Robert Timmerman

Philip Toscano

January 30, 2016

Hon. Paul Vallone

New York City Council

42-40 Bell Boulevard, Suite 507

Bayside, NY 11361

Dear Councilman Vallone:

We are grateful for your efforts on behalf of homeowners associations like ours

that represent neighborhoods protected by restrictive covenants. We applauded

your Intro 280, which would have required the Department of Buildings to

maintain a publicly available registry of such covenants contained in property

deeds.

We were initially pleased by your January 18, 2016 announcement of an

agreement with the Department of Finance to create such a registry. But we were

extremely disappointed when we had a chance to review the proposed DOF form

through which information for the registry would be submitted. The form is soburdensome as to make the entire process almost useless. Specifically the form

requires documentation which will be very difficult and/or expensive for any

homeowners association to gather and submit.

1. Section II of the form requires that the Borough, Block and Lot number of

each affected parcel be reported. This is completely reasonable, and is an

eminently manageable burden. However, the form then goes on to require that the

property's "legal description" be attached. We understand this to mean the metes

and bounds description of each affected property as contained in the actual deed

for that property. Gathering this information for the hundreds of properties

protected by covenants in any given neighborhood would be extraordinarilyburdensome and expensive. More to the point, it serves no useful purpose! The

only purpose for the registry is to alert potential buyers or developers or builders

of the existence of the covenants. The legal metes and bounds description of the

property adds nothing of any value to that exercise. All it does is make it nearly

impossible for the homeowners association to populate the registry. In short, this

requirement alone fatally undermines the whole plan, which was very simple in its

conception.

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2. Section III of the form requires the Liber, Reel and Page where the restrictive covenants

for the parcel are located. The same Section goes on to require that a copy of the document that

established the covenants be attached. It appears that what is demanded here is the original deed

for each subject property when the covenants were first imposed. Once again, this requirement

puts the entire process effectively out of reach of most homeowners associations. In our

Westmoreland community, for example, the original subdivision and sale of the parcels inquestion took place a century ago. Over 300 properties in our neighborhood are subject to the

covenants. An enormous amount of research would be needed to gather this information for each

such parcel.

I reiterate that this excessive documentation is not necessary to effectuate the legitimate

objectives of your Intro 280. The purpose of the registry is simply to put people on notice that

covenants exist. Their own title search companies should provide them the detailed information.

(Of course, the title search companies should be identifying the existence of the covenants

independent of the registry, but in our experience this does not always happen.) The DOF form

effectively seeks to transfer the burden of doing a proper title search from the landowner or

developer to the homeowners association; this is unacceptable.

One further concern is that the registry would be maintained by DOF, rather than the Department

of Buildings as we originally proposed and as your Introl 280 would require. This, too,

undermines the purpose of the registry. Most would-be developers or homeowners planning

additional construction will necessarily visit the DOB website; they will have far less reason to

visit the DOF website. That is why we suggested that the registry be maintained by DOB, and

that there be a clear, simple flag on the DOB property record to alert persons to the existence of

the covenants. (If the DOF insists on being the agency to maintain the registry, then the DOB

website should provide a notice of that fact and a link to the registry.)

We could not be more disappointed by the City administrations response to your efforts. Werespectfully request that you work further with DOF and DOB to achieve a reasonable, effective

and efficient registry that includes a flag in the DOB database.

Sincerely,

Walter Mugdan

President

cc: Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association

Douglas Manor Association