Small Investors Creating a Giant Pool of Money To Keep NYC Affordable
(DNAINFO) Amy Zimmer | August 6, 2017 — As New Yorkers grow increasingly fed up with the loss of small businesses, cultural organizations and neighbors because of high rents, momentum is building for a scrappy real estate venture aimed at providing affordable options.
The NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative (REIC,) a grassroot effort that has grown to 400 members since it was founded in 2015, is pooling its money to invest in real estate that preserves, restores or somehow enhances spaces for the city’s cultural, community and small business uses.
But first, the REIC — which only has $3,000 so far but pledges exceeding $1 million — has to come up with a short list of projects.
Members will vote on projects they want to invest in, with the aim of selecting projects that have the mutual benefit for the member-owners as well as for stabilizing communities in the city, with the goal of financing at least one permanently affordable commercial property by the end of this year.
To do that, the volunteer-run organization plans to hold a meeting on Tuesday evening at the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch at Grand Army Plaza, inviting groups from around the city to share projects they are organizing around. The group expects to vote on selected projects this Fall.
“It’s been a process of building the capacity to do what we want to do,” said Mara Dawn Kravitz, who is on the REIC’s steering committee and also is the director of partnerships at 596 Acres, a land access group providing technical assistance to the co-op. “It’s about allowing people to participate in decisions about land in their neighborhoods, to be able to steward more places in their neighborhood, and to insure they serve the needs of the neighborhood in the long run.”