Co-op City, or Cooperative City, is a cooperative housing complex located in the northeastern section of the Bronx District in New York City. It is the largest cooperative housing development in the world and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Construction of Co-op City began in May 1966 and residents began moving in December 1968. The complex was completed in 1973 and has since become a model for affordable housing and a symbol of the Cooperative Housing Movement. The development was financed with a mortgage loan from the New York State Housing Finance Agency (HFA). Abraham Kazan, known as the “father of cooperative housing”, was the mastermind behind Co-op City and brought more than 100,000 units of clean, affordable housing for workers to New York City.
The resort defaulted on the loan in 1975 and has ongoing agreements to repay the HFA. RiverBay Corporation is the corporation that operates the community and is managed by a 15-member board of directors. As a cooperative development, tenants manage the complex through this elected board. The corporation employs more than 1,000 people and has 32 administrative and operational departments to handle development. Co-op City has 15,372 residential units comprised of 35 high-rise buildings and seven groups of townhouses. It also has eight parking lots, three shopping centers, a 25-acre (100,000 m²) educational park with a high school, two middle schools, and three elementary schools.
Doctors, lawyers and other professionals rent more than 40 offices, and there are 15 places of worship. Scattered throughout the community are six day care centers and day care centers, four basketball courts and five baseball fields. The adjacent Bay Plaza shopping center has a 13-room multiplex, department stores, and a supermarket. The land surrounding Co-op City was originally a swampy area known as the garbage dump. The foundation of the building extends to the bedrock through 50,000 piles, but the land surrounding the Cooperative's structures settles and sinks by a fraction of an inch each year. Most of the streets in Co-op City are named after notable historic personalities.
Typically, the streets in section one begin with the letter D, section two begins with the letter C, section three with the letter A, section four with the letter B, and section five with the letter E.In 1986, an agreement was made that Co-op City would remain in the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program for at least seven more years as a concession for arrears. This agreement also stated that any rehabilitation that Co-op City undertook to improve its original poor construction would generate credits to eliminate its debt. Co-op City has been reviled in many places because it is blamed for the decline in other parts of the Bronx. However, residents don't agree on all kinds of things but they all have one thing in common: a desire to ensure Co-op City's affordability. Co-op City stands out as an example of how open membership, democratic control, surplus distribution, and diversity can create livable housing for working and middle-income New Yorkers. It is also an example of how civic fighters can work together to achieve fair housing for all.
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