Section 902. Definitions

As used in this article, the following words and
  phrases shall have the following meanings:
    1. "Commissioner" shall mean the commissioner of the state division of
  housing and community renewal.
    2. "Division" shall mean the state division of housing  and  community
  renewal.
    3.  "Municipality"  shall  mean  any  city, town or village within the
  state.
    4.  "Neighborhood  preservation  company"  shall  mean  a  corporation
  organized  under  the  provisions  of the not-for-profit corporation law
  which has been engaged primarily in one  or  more  of  the  neighborhood
  preservation activities specified in subdivision five of this section.
    5.   "Neighborhood  preservation  activities"  shall  mean  activities
  engaged  in  by   a   neighborhood   preservation   company   within   a
  geographically  defined  neighborhood  of a municipality designed (a) to
  construct,  maintain,  preserve,  repair,  renovate,  upgrade,  improve,
  modernize,  rehabilitate  or  otherwise  prolong  the useful life and to
  manage  and  coordinate  the  rehabilitation  of  residential   dwelling
  accommodations within such neighborhood, to restore abandoned and vacant
  as  well  as  occupied housing accommodations to habitable condition; to
  demolish structurally  unsound  or  unsafe  or  otherwise  unsightly  or
  unhealthy  structures  which no longer serve or can economically be made
  to serve a useful purpose consistent with  stabilizing  or  improving  a
  neighborhood;  to  seal  and  maintain  vacant  but  structurally  sound
  structures which are capable of being rehabilitated at a future time and
  used for housing purposes;  to  acquire,  where  appropriate,  buildings
  which  contain  housing accommodations; to facilitate the disposition of
  buildings containing  housing  accommodations  to  individual  occupants
  thereof  or  to  cooperative  groups  whose  members  shall be occupants
  thereof;  to  assist  owners,   occupants   and   tenants   of   housing
  accommodations to obtain improvements in the physical conditions thereof
  and  in  the  maintenance  and management thereof; and to manage housing
  accommodations as agents for the owners  thereof  or  administrators  or
  receivers  appointed or designated pursuant to any law of the state; and
  (b) to accomplish similar purposes and meet similar needs  with  respect
  to  retail  and  service  establishments  within such neighborhoods when
  carried out in connection with and incidental to a  program  of  housing
  related activities.
    6.  "Persons  of low income" shall mean individuals and families whose
  annual incomes do not exceed ninety per cent of the median annual income
  for all residents of the municipality within which they reside.