“Chuck basically saved co-ops in New York – there’s no other way to say it,” says Stuart Saft, a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight who served on the NCB board of directors from 1998 to 2012. “After tax reform in 1986, the Savings & Loan crisis happened, and a lot of co-op sponsors started to default. Without Chuck going to other lenders and telling them not to push to foreclose, there would be no co-ops today. When I got the call that he had died, I was devastated. It’s incredibly sad. He did so much for cooperative housing in New York.”
Mary Ann Rothman, executive director of the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums, echoes Saft’s words: “I think Chuck was a tremendous hero for all kinds of cooperatives. His death is a devastating loss for all of us who believe in co-ops. He was a wonderful, quiet, self-effacing man.”
Read the rest at Habitat Magazine
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