The Co-op and Condo Insider
The Co-op & Condo Insider is your trusted source for expert commentary led by advocates within New York City’s co-op and condo world. Each episode offers insights into the challenges, news, and stories that shape a community making up more than 20% of this great city’s residents.
The Co-op and Condo Insider
What Boards Need to Know About the Application Timeline Law with guest Amanda Farias
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New York City Council Member Amanda Farias, former majority leader and representative of District 18 in the Bronx, joins Geoffrey Mazel to talk about the bill co-op boards across the city are preparing for right now: Intro 1120-B, the cooperative application timeline law. Farias grew up in Soundview, raised in an intergenerational household by grandparents who came from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and who fostered children for decades. She traces her path from pulling the voting lever for her grandmother to working on Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, staffing Council Member Elizabeth Crowley in Queens, and running for office herself at 26. She lost that first race in 2017, came back, and won the seat in 2021.
The heart of the conversation is 1120-B itself. Farias walks through what the law actually requires: standardized applications, written acknowledgment of receipt within 15 days, board decisions within 45 days of a completed application, extension provisions, summer recess tolling, and civil penalties starting at $1,500 enforced by HPD through a complaint-based system. She explains how the bill landed on her desk after a decade of stalled attempts, the long list of stakeholders who shaped the amendments, from REBNY and the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums to the Association of Riverdale Cooperatives and Condominiums, and why the council overrode Mayor Adams' veto. The law takes effect in July 2026, giving boards and managing agents six months to update their procedures.
The episode wraps with a personal round covering her favorite spots in the district, from Barrio BX in Castle Hill to Willy's Steakhouse in Parkchester, her painting habit, and a Pokemon card collection that keeps her connected to her younger brothers. She also previews what's next: new co-op construction at Stevenson Commons, a resolution supporting Mitchell-Lama residents, and the Good Food Purchasing Program. For anyone serving on a board or managing a building, this is a direct look at the thinking behind the biggest change to the co-op application process in years.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00This is the Co-op and Condo Insider, the podcast dedicated to New York's cooperative and condominium communities. This is your trusted source for the latest insights, strategies, and stories shaping the world of shared housing. You will hear from the people who are leaders in this community. Information and insights you will not hear anywhere else. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you're in the right place. The views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of the host or any affiliated individuals or organizations.
SPEAKER_01I just want to welcome everybody to the Colt McCondo Insider and introduce New York City Councilmember Amanda Ferrius, a former majority leader of the New York Council. Council member Ferrius represents District 18, which represents Soundview, Glass and Point, Castle Hall, Hardy Park, Park Chester, and Westchester. So we're thank you for joining me today.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me.
Growing Up In A Tight Community
SPEAKER_01So let's start from the beginning. Where did you grow and what was your community like?
SPEAKER_02I grew up in the Southview area of this district. I have been here my entire life, born and raised. And my grandparents came from Portland on the Civil Republic, raised both my parents here, and we've been here the whole time. I think for me, I was growing up with the community all around you taking care of me. I had an intergenerational household with multiple family members living out of it. I knew the neighbors would tell my grandmother if I would pass the corner. Right. Very back in the day, kind of community upbringing where everyone looked out for each other, and that investment is what kept neighbor safe.
SPEAKER_01So you're a real local.
SPEAKER_02Yes, super local.
SPEAKER_01Super local. And what were some of the early influences in your life? Family members, mentors, teachers?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would say my grandparents for sure, I think were have been the people that made the biggest murder for me. They were folks that came from the island and had two kids of their own, but actually were foster parents. And then took in my mother and her identical twin at just a couple weeks old and really did that for a lot of other children. And so I grew up with a very uh myriad of people that looked differently, but I learned later on in life that my grandparents were foster parents and that all of us were not related, and that kind of really changed how I viewed what family makeup could look like, and also just what community can look like. And of course, my mother can raise me as a single mom, and those two people have had big influences.
SPEAKER_01That is an amazing thing, though, to raise children that are not your own and yeah, and except their judgment as your grandchildren.
SPEAKER_02My household was very noisy and always had a lot of people, but it was really joyous and so above.
SPEAKER_01You're very lucky.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I guess this leads into my next question.
Finding A Path Into Public Service
SPEAKER_01What values or experience shaped your interest in public service?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I always find this question interesting for me because I never had the light bulb moments. It wasn't ever a day where I said, now I need to go into public service. Really, the intergenerational household of the interdependency, constantly helping people out. I do sometimes actually speak about my Catholic upbringing. I went to parochial school my entire life, even accidentally from college. I was over St. John's Catholic school. But just being in that environment where you knew you had to take care of your neighbor or take care of someone next to you or around you to better impact how you get to live, really have made the biggest impact and the biggest importance.
SPEAKER_01And what was Chiracre into civic engagement and community work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the first moment I can tag to what was politics or government or civic engagement was pulling the lever for my journal, which I actually voted. That is like how I remember my family's involvement in politics. But I did study government and politics, the public administration, and St. John's. And at the time I started doing electoral campaigns, and that was my first introduction into political life. I did a bunch of local campaigns as a young student in food organizing or strategy development for windmovers. And that then brought me into working on Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. That then trickled into me working at the city council as a council spent.
SPEAKER_01You reminded me when Obama first ran. My daughter was 11, my daughter. And I brought her to the poll with me, and I said, you poll the left. Because someday you could tell your grandchildren that you voted for Barack Obama.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it turned out to be history. That's amazing. That was an amazing day. What ultimately to you were staffer for city council member? Which council member was?
SPEAKER_02Council member Elizabeth Crowney in Queens.
SPEAKER_01And that's we remember her well. We worked with her a lot. We remember when she ran for when I'm president and was always the absolute public professional. And what did you do for her?
SPEAKER_02I did a little bit of everything. I started out as a constituent liaison, and so we was really getting familiar with the issues there, worked with the agencies. I ran her participatory budgeting effort in the district where I got to know more of the local groups and stakeholders and people that were on the boards. I ended up also being the executive director for the women's
Learning City Hall From The Inside
SPEAKER_02caucus, which she served for two years in the council. So I did a little bit of tissue work and budget work and then legislative work when I managed the caucus for her in City Hall.
SPEAKER_01Which caucus was it?
SPEAKER_02And then she's actually the reason why I ended up running for public office myself.
SPEAKER_01So that was a decided. What were the issues that you first campaign?
SPEAKER_02I think being born and raised here, I initially came in with need to really fix the mobility issues that we have in the district.
SPEAKER_01Transportation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, trans issues. We have no micro-mobility hubs, very little bike lanes, and we have one major train line at the time. We didn't have the ferry landing just here. I was just coming in along with housing. I saw my grandparents in a home, and that's how I grew up. But my mother was a renter herself, and a lot of folks around me, a lot of my friends' families, were all renters and tenants. And so trying to figure out how do we create that economic opportunity for folks, but also the housing opportunity, the stability, the generational wealth in a moment of looking at housing opportunities. And obviously, as I'm sure you're familiar with, there's a whole host of things that come with money in the Bronx. So we're still the most unhealthy county out of all the counties in New York and City. So there's always health justice work that has to happen. Fluid justice work that has to happen. But I think my main components were housing and development related infrastructure upgrades and always transportation.
SPEAKER_01What year was this?
SPEAKER_02Just 2017, so almost a decade ago.
SPEAKER_01So I won't ask age because I'm not supposed to, but you were definitely suffering from excessive youthfulness at the time.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I was the youngest candidate of my recent 26.
SPEAKER_01What made you think he could win?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, honestly, you
Losing, Running Again, Then Winning
SPEAKER_02got to be a little delusional to be in politics, right? I think I knew I was bringing in all the candidates that were running. I knew I was bringing the most closest to what everyone was experiencing. So that was really important to running at the time. We had really disconnected leadership. We have folks that weren't really looking at how to best use their dollars. I knew that I had time in City Hall and I had managed budgets for multiple years that have passed, created policy and got those policies passed. And still was having a really strong lived experience both through my childhood but also as a young adult living here.
SPEAKER_01Did you have a mentor? Was Crowley a mentor? Somebody was somebody encouraging?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would say Councilmember Crowley was the person that was really encouraging me to run the race and helped me a great bit, along with Councilmember Helen Rosendal and Councilmember Chin. Those three women really encouraged me to keep running into it, and they supported me in my election.
SPEAKER_01So I remember Assemblymember Broadsweet said to us, we're just young enough not to know and to be scared.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's a lot of truths that are that resonates with me. You're a bit naive to what running a race really means and how arduous it is and how challenging it could be. But I was really committing to making sure that I could represent this district. And so we myself and my team who were kind of saying worked really hard.
SPEAKER_01How many so you had a primary, obviously? How many people have been numerous candidates?
SPEAKER_02I was one percent. I lost that election in 2017. Yeah, that's the election I lost in 2017. It was against uh the Senate who came down from the Senate to run in an open sea, but then I decided to primary him in 2019, and I ran and won in 2021.
SPEAKER_01Even vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You gotta be young to be that bold, but sorry.
SPEAKER_02Then then you then he stepped down, did want to run for re-election, put his own candidate in, and I beat that candidate.
SPEAKER_01Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_01How proud of Mom was it for your family?
SPEAKER_02Extremely proud. I think they thought it was really challenging the first time for me and really hard for them to see me put so much into it and then to lose, but try again. But I will say that I think sometimes you have to be able to push through other people's expectations. My parents, like I said, I mentioned my mother grew up with foster care in and out of households at times, along with my family's immigrant experience. They're looking for stability, they're looking for a consistency. And so me leaving a job to run for office for a job I might not get wasn't necessarily, I think, something like they would want to do, but that's the point of being first gen. You get to take the risks.
SPEAKER_01I always admire people who left for elective office because you do leave a job and you're not guaranteed anything, and then you have to go find a job if you don't learn. Yeah. I appreciate your boldness there. So let's go into we are the co-opacondo insider.
Why Co-Ops Matter In The Bronx
SPEAKER_01Have you lived in a co-op?
SPEAKER_02I have never lived in a co-op. I've been a tenant my entire life. By the time I was an adult and living on my own as a renter, my mom rented in a co-op and then she ended up purchasing her own co-op afterward.
SPEAKER_01So you in your family, there's co-op ownership.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And how many co-ops are in your district? Do you have any ideas?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think we have nearly 20, and it's a mixture of both private cooperatives along with Michelama, HDFCs. We do have some condominiums as well throughout the area that are relatively large that I think sometimes people think are co-ops that they're convos, but we have a mixture here.
SPEAKER_01That's always a peeve for some of the people. It's completely different. So why is the cooperative home ownership model so important to your district?
SPEAKER_02I think how I've always viewed it and how many folks in the borough, but not only the district, view it, is this is like the first realistic step towards attaining home ownership and a pathway to home ownership in any district, let alone my own for middle class families in the Bronx. That is for me the main foundational point. How I view an opportunity to purchase and be a shareholder in a co op is about finally owning all the steps beforehand that came into place for you to finally own a home in the community that you're raising your family in, that you have.