In July, a Clinton Hill co-op board decided to enforce a house rule: no decorations on any doors, without getting board approval first. That meant that Vincent Romano had to remove the magnetic American flag he’d placed there to commemorate a relative killed in the 9/11 attacks, reports Habitat magazine. Despite the bad press that Willoughby Walk Co-ops endured after word got out, the board persisted, not realizing that the “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005″ protects one’s right to display the American flag on one’s own property. Except it turns out the door to your unit belongs to the co-op as a whole. “In a co-op you don’t own; you have possessory-use right for inside the apartment,” says an attorney. Which means co-ops are immune from the federal law, and maybe you should ask your co-op board next time you want to alter your door, no matter how patriotic the change.
Authoritarian Boards, Public Rancor, Wise Compromise [Habitat]
Photo by PropertyShark.