It moved over to the dark side long ago, critics argue, eagerly inventing ever more intrusive steering and control mechanisms and imposing assessment regimes on universities to keep successive governments happy.
To pay soaring oil bills, some co-ops may impose assessments or raise maintenance fees, he said.
"A co-op board has the power to impose assessments or increase maintenance to fund any cost relating to the operation of the building," he said.
A Eric D. Sherman, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, says that co-op bylaws almost always give boards the authority to impose assessments without the need for a shareholder vote.
Mark B. Shernicoff, a Manhattan co-op accountant, said buildings that regularly impose assessments to recapture the abatement most likely did so at the beginning of 2007 for last year's abatement.
"They will also show whether the building has adequate reserves to meet anticipated or unforeseen repairs, improvements and other extraordinary expenses, or whether it will have to impose assessments or increase borrowing to meet those expenses".
Last year, the board imposed an assessment on all shareholders in the building.
Last May the government imposed an assessment of 5 cents for every $100 in deposits, on top of the regular premiums.
It is also possible, he said, that the board applied the refund as an offset against the common charges on the unit or might even have imposed an assessment equal to the refund.
Mr. Aronowitz was also one of two candidates -- the other being Mr. Leighton -- who supported reinstating a commuter tax that until its repeal in 1999 imposed an assessment on people who worked in New York City but lived in the suburbs.
Last November, our condominium's board decided to undertake a common hallway renovation project and imposed an assessment based on each unit owner's interest in the common elements.
