Village View Resident Goes to Court Over Parking Lot Sale
Sebastian Kot has asked the board of the East Village cooperative to produce books and records related to the proposed sale, which has infuriated residents who are angry about losing parking spots with little to no input from the co-ops residents.
| 21 Sep 2026 | 11:05
A resident at Village View has taken the East Village cooperative to court over the proposed sale of a parking lot of the premises, which has driven shared outrage among his fellow shareholders. (
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Village View, a seven-building complex, belongs to the Mitchell-Llama program. (
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The drama over the proposed sale of a parking lot used by residents of a Mitchell-Llama cooperative in the East Village continues to heat up, with one resident now taking the co-op board that is pursuing the sale to court.
Sebastian Kot is specifically demanding that Village View, the co-op in question, “produce books and records that have been repeatedly requested and repeatedly refused.” Kot—who technically identifies with the “shareholder” title given to all residents at Village View—is representing himself on a pro-se basis.
As previously reported by Our Town, the parking lot sale—which would eliminate more than 100 parking spaces—is intended to cover a $2 million budget shortfall, which has accumulated over the past four years and led the board to rely on reserve funding.
According to Village View reps, the reserves have shrunk from $18 million to $3 million since 2021, and the parking lot sale is supposed to prevent the alternative route of hiking maintenance fees paid by residents; the co-op previously approved a cumulative 29 percent hike in these fees between 2022 and 2024.
Board representatives say that three developers are currently looking to purchase the plot, offering bids in the “high $30 million” range, with Village View itself looking to clear $30 million in revenue after taxes and fees.
According to a report in the blog EV Grieve, Village View board members voted to hire ABS Partners to help secure development contracts in a January meeting, as well as met with the law firm Sheppherd Mullin and former City Council Member Domenic Recchia.
This revenue would then go into a conservative secure investment trust with a four percent interest rate and a $1.2 million rolloff, which Village View estimates would net as much revenue as hiking maintenance fees by nine percent each year.
Yet Kot is highly skeptical, writing that a March request for “financial and redevelopment records” related to the parking lot was answered with a 29-page refusal letter.
According to his books and records motion filed before the Manhattan State Supreme Court, he had sought the following: “invoices, contracts, feasibility studies, payment records, Board resolutions, [and] minutes.”
Instead, he had reportedly received “only two retainer agreements, one broker agreement, and one Board resolution were produced.” Kot’s motion also clarifies that an Assistant Commissioner with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Julie Walpert, had witnessed this refusal.
Furthermore, Kot charges that the board “refused to produce minutes” for an April meeting that involved redevelopment discussions for the parking lot, including board officials announcing that they’d spent $300,000 on the “Parking Lot 7 initiative.” The board also reportedly didn’t publish minutes for a July meeting, Kot’s motion notes, which allegedly included “retaliatory termination threats...made on the record.”
Kot is also disputing recent relevant financial claims made by the board of Village View, calling them “contradictory.” For example, his motion says that one July 13 memo claimed a “monthly surplus of $174,000,” followed by a September presentation “showing operational deficits.” He also said that Village View had offered debt claims ranging from $706,000 to “more than $1 million.”