Governor adds co-ops to tax plan.

Owner occupied co-ops have been added to Governor George Pataki's proposed school property tax relief program after outcries from New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone and Council Finance Chairman Herb Berman, who criticized the Governor's original plan for not including co-ops, apartment buildings and commercial property.

The Governor is making the changes through permitted 30-day amendments to the School Tax Relief, or STAR program, as pert of other changes to his executive budget bill. The Governor is including an additional $8 million in the 97-98 school year targeted at senior citizen residents of cooperatives and is changing language that specifically referred to "homes."

Non-senior property taxpayers would receive the STAR exemption benefits beginning the following school year, 1998-99.

"Co-op apartment owners burdened by high property taxes through their building maintenance fees can now be assured that they will benefit from my STAR plan to provide homeowners unprecedented savings from school taxes," the Governor said in a statement. The Legislature, however, still has to approve the budget.

There are about 260,000 individual cooperative apartments in the state, including 212,000 in New York City. About 60,000 Mitchell-Lama coop units would benefit from the program.

Not all the cooperative owners will benefit, however, as the rules for cooperatives will be similar to the primary residence requirement for homeowners and will call for benefits to go only to resident tenant - stockholders.

Initially, cooperative units were excluded as the Bureau of Real Property Services, that was developing STAR, did not have the data available to credit cooperative unit owners, who pay property taxes through maintenance charges. Condo unit owners were included because they already pay taxes based on a separate tax lot.

According to Joe Gerberg, associate attorney New York State Office of Real Property Services, that office is now developing a form that home and unit owners will file with the appropriate assessor's office, which in New York City would be with the Dept. of Finance.

"No one will get it automatically," said Gerberg. "Condos have to apply. There is no provision for sponsors and the unit must be the primary residence of the occupant and not rented. The city will administer the program, he said.