Steering Committee Update
Getting Our Legal Ducks in a Row
It’s possible to create the alternatives we need when we play with the mechanisms that determine real estate. Your Steering Committee has been working with lawyers from Lincoln Square Legal Services’ (LSLS) Community Economic Development Clinic of Fordham Law School, led by founding member Paula Z. Segal, and at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, to register with the NYS Attorney General to fundraise for collective real estate investment through the LLC we will incorporate. The package we need to submit to the NYS AG’s office describing our model, and how it fits within their regulatory framework, is underway!
At the same time, we are working with Community Economic Development Clinic lawyers to set up the 501c3 non-profit that will be empowered to govern our LLC fund in accordance with cooperative principles. We are creating our bylaws, starting with what the Governance Committee developed and presented at the last all-member meeting (it starts on slide 33 of the presentation here).
Steering Committee members meeting with LSLS lawyers last Friday
Here is a diagram showing how our non-profit, LLC, and local community partners will work together to facilitate investment that supports a just, equitable and resilient city (click on it to see it larger and sharp):
This updated diagram shows how our different entities will work together to allow local wealth building and democratic member control. Thanks to the many member-investors who helped develop this model and graphic!
Donate for the future of NYC!
We are almost out the other side of our 2-year incubation period! Help us get there: make a tax-deductible donation to the NYC REIC, help us find and apply for suitable grants, or donate your pro-bono professional services in real estate, finance, accounting, web design, graphic design, development, facilitation, law, or something else. Your donation will support the creation of a new infrastructure for social investment in the places that make NYC livable and great! You can email steering@nycreic.com to donate labor, call us at our new phone number: (718) 316-6092 ext. 5, or write a check to the New York City Real Estate Investment Cooperative and send it to:
New York City REIC
℅ 596 Acres
540 President Street, #2E
Brooklyn, NY 11215
During this period, fiscal sponsorship is provided by Spaceworks NYC, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit cultural community development organization dedicated to expanding the supply of long-term, affordable rehearsal and studio space for artists in New York City. Thanks, Spaceworks!
Project Vetting
We are following a timeline towards a first investment by May 2017. Our Scoping Criteria (version 8) is a checklist that allows members to test if the investment they have in mind for our cooperative fits our scope. At the All-Member Meeting on Wednesday, October 26th, we will do an exercise on how you can use this checklist to begin vetting a potential project near you. If it fits through Gate 1 and Gate 2, the Steering Committee would love to talk with you! The Steering Committee would love to talk with you anyway: email us at steering@nycreic.com or call us at our new phone number: (718) 316-6092 ext. 5!
Art & Media Update
We are now working with the generous designers at Topos Graphics to create a new logo, style guide, and all around beautification of the NYC REIC visual identity. If you have ideas about how you think that should look, email carolinewoolard@gmail.com
We will be featured in the Laura Flanders Show, and they are have shared hours of footage with us, from our past All-Member meeting. If you have the time and energy to select clips that you feel are most important, please email carolinewoolard@gmail.com
If you would like to post to the REIC blog! Contact Leland at leland.cheuk@gmail.com to post on a topic specific to your workgroup or anything else related to the REIC –See: http://nycreic.com/blog/ Join!
Please contact Mark Read at newsletter@nycreic.com if you are interested in joining the Newsletter Team! We need people who can write, edit and design in Mailchimp.
REIC University Update
In July, REIC U hosted a film screening and discussion of the documentary Rerooting the Motor City: Notes on a City in Transformation in collaboration with its producers, Paper Tiger Television. The film explores Detroit’s radical history, philosophy, and the ongoing collective efforts to create community control of space and development. After the film, attendees created “problem trees,” exploring core challenges the film raised, their roots, tactics to address them, and outcomes of these tactics.
In the coming months, REIC U will continue hosting film screenings and panel discussions. The committee will return to organizing a training for REIC members regarding cooperative membership and community engagement, creating an official Wikipedia page, maintaining an up-to-date and centrally organized series of presentations and printed materials to educate new members on the status of the REIC, creating blog posts about other cooperative real estate ventures and more. Let us know:
- Do these scoping criteria adequately reflect the your vision of the REIC?
Email: nyc-reic-case-studies@googlegroups.com
CORB: Community Outreach & Relationship Building Update
We are re-starting CORB, now that we are ready to vet projects – join us!
The former PBIG: Public Buildings Inventory Group seeks new members with great community organizing skills. We are looking for those who can help us build our community engagement model and educate the membership in best practices in how to reach out to communities and work together with them, in a horizontal, democratic, grassroots way.
We are also looking for members who can help with translation, where necessary – whether from Spanish, Chinese, Russian, or other languages.
In September and October, CORB and SC member Adele Eisenstein is taking part in the Neighborhood Leadership Institute workshop series offered by Citizens Committee for New York City (see: http://www.citizensnyc.org/workshops) and is looking forward to sharing this knowledge and putting it to use in the REIC. You can also find the information on all the workshops at the link above.
We are currently planning our next meeting, and you can always contact us at: nycreic–public-buildings-inventory-group@googlegroups.com to get involved.