After an hour-long debate and Q-A session Monday night, the Common Council of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) passed a resolution urging that the surcharge schedule at Rivercross be brought into line with that imposed on residents of Westview, Island House, and Eastwood.

In the debate, John Weatherhead, President of the Rivercross Board, and Fran Dym, Chair of the building's Committee for Maintenance and Privatization Fair Play, argued opposite sides.  The Council's vote favored a modified form of a resolution proposed by Dym, 15 to 0, with 3 abstaining.

The resolution has no legal effect.  The State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) is currently considering a revised surcharge schedule for Rivercross, but is said to be holding a decision until after a Board of Directors election to be concluded Tuesday (May 25).  All current members of the Board are running for reelection.  There are five challengers, all of whom have become identified in some measure with the Fair Play Committee's position.  In the debate Monday night, Weatherhead referred to the group as a "slate" put forward by Dym; Dym denied they are an organized slate, and most of the challengers professed independence in their candidacy statements.

For 20 years, the Rivercross surcharge schedule has scaled to a maximum of ten percent for cooperators whose income exceeds DHCR guidelines for Mitchell-Lama housing.  Figures used by the building's Board of Directors in recent discussions put the number of apartment owners paying a surcharge at about 120 (out of 364 apartments).  Of the 120, about half pay the maximum surcharge þ either because their reported income exceeds the high end of the surcharge index, or because they opt not to provide certification of their income.

A two-bedroom apartment with four occupants or fewer, carrying maintenance charges of $1,205 per month, is typically not surcharged until household income exceeds $112,770.  The maximum surcharge of ten percent is imposed only when income reaches 146 percent of that amount, or $164,600.  At present, the ten percent maximum surcharge results in a monthly maintenance bill of about $1,330 for such an apartment; with a 50 percent cap, the same apartment on a maximum surcharge schedule would pay about $1,800 a month.

The Fair Play committee contends that, when cooperators with the highest incomes pay surcharges limited to ten percent, the 40 percent they're not paying must be made up by higher maintenance charges on all apartments.  Dym calculated that a recent maintenance increase of about four percent would have been unnecessary were the surcharge schedule consistent with practice in the rest of New York State.

While the Rivercross Board of Directors has indicated a willingness to increase the surcharge schedule (though not necessarily to a 50 percent maximum), it has contended that it is impossible to foresee the economic ffect of higher surcharges, since some higher-income residents might move out if facing increased cost.  Calling the issue "divisive" in Monday night's discussion, Weatherhead also cited the action by the Fair Play Committee as destructive to a "collegiality" enjoyed by the cooperative as a whole, and its Board, over the years.

The Fair Play committee had earlier raised an unrelated issue having to do with allocation of building shares, contending that small apartments carry a disproportionately high assignment of shares, while large apartments carry a disproportionately low number of shares.  Because monthly maintenance is based on shares assigned to an apartment, the share allocations have a direct bearing on each cooperator's monthly costs.

The allocation issue is on a back burner for the moment, with the immediate contention centering on the surcharge issue.  But Dym claims that the combination of share allocations and a low surcharge schedule puts an unfair burden on low-income residents, which she says is contrary to the intent of the Mitchell-Lama law.  Board members have claimed that a low schedule of surcharges makes for stability in the building, keeping it attractive for higher-income shareholders, and that, after two decades of standing practice, higher-income shareholders should not be hit with a sudden, radical increase in surcharges.