The Compliance Gap Is Costing You More Than You Think.

Cobalt Advisory Partners was founded on the simple observation that housing unaffordability in NYC is a solvable problem.  Solvable, but failing — not for lack of capital, and not for lack of good intent or committed staff, but for lack of execution infrastructure and technology imagination. 

Our firm’s name origin is not by accident.  The Cobalt name radiates the tenets of the fourth Industrial Revolution and the elemental properties of one of the most impactful critical minerals driving 21st-century innovation.

The story of cobalt’s resilience as a mineral has been a story for the ages. Historically, cobalt was rarely mined on its own; it was viewed as a negligible byproduct extracted through the mining of copper and nickel ores. A mineral afterthought.  However, the mineral’s true value was hiding in plain sight. Cobalt is the ultimate transition metal — the stabilizing element that prevents battery cathodes from collapsing under high-voltage stress, providing the foundational structural layer of today’s battery technology, allowing us to store energy and power the future.

In materials science, cobalt is what makes high-performance systems durable under pressure. The same logic applies to Cobalt’s business. The affordable housing ecosystem has the capital, the policy framework, and the need. What it has lacked is the stabilizing layer — the compliance infrastructure that makes the rest of the systematic framework hold. Cobalt Advisory Partners was built to provide that exact structural integrity to an affordable housing market ecosystem that has long needed stabilizing support.

The unprecedented housing shortage in New York City has only increased the stakes — and sharpened the need for urgency. Seven million affordable housing applications submitted in 2025 for only ten thousand available units. Median approval timelines requiring several months for a determination that should only take weeks — all while units remain vacant and families continue to wait. The crisis is not theoretical. It is measured in empty apartments, unnecessary carrying costs and years of system inefficiency. New York City has never needed a stabilizing automated compliance layer more than it does now — and the window to build it is open today, in a way it’s never been before.

Cobalt Advisory Partners enters this moment from a position of direct operational experience. The firm's founding Principal spent nearly a decade leading finance for one of the most transformative office-to-residential owner platforms in Lower Manhattan, DTH Capital, owner of historic landmark conversions 70 Pine and 20 Exchange Place (latter sold in 2024).

That hands-on operational experience produced hard-earned fluency working within the NYC regulatory environment and tax incentive/abatement program agencies, proficiency and understanding that are key to Cobalt’s value creation strategies it offers clients in navigating the complex 467-m abatement program and its compliance requirements.

It’s that institutional owner/operator knowledge Cobalt brings — the kind that only comes from direct trench experience understanding the financial data, operational processes, and regulatory environment engagement — which perfectly positions Cobalt as a clear  difference maker for each of its clients looking to build a better New York City.

Every determination explained. Every rule cited. Every position defensible.

Not Black Box. Glass Box.

Cobalt Advisory Partners: Team

Lamartiniere “Lamar” Auguste, CPA - Managing Principal

Lamar is the Managing Principal of Cobalt Advisory Partners, LLC, a specialized New York City advisory firm supporting affordable housing compliance and office-to-residential development. Lamar most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of DTH Capital, where he led finance, accounting, tax and treasury, for the real estate arm of a single-family office, and 1.8 million square feet of office-to-residential landmark properties in Lower Manhattan. 

As CFO of DTH Capital, Lamar managed financial operations for multifamily market-rate and stabilized units, as well as, hotel, restaurant and retail assets.  His responsibilities also extended to structured finance matters associated with office conversions — including managing historic tax credits, master lease structures, and development tax abatement programs — alongside end-to-end management of commercial tax and business incentives, workforce grants, and energy decarbonization incentives across federal, state, and city programs.  Lamar also led the process of securing significant property tax assessment reductions in the tens of millions for the company through the New York City tax certiorari process.

Earlier in his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers and AIG Global Real Estate (AIGGRE), Lamar developed a foundation in complex institutional investment structures and cross-border regulatory environments. At AIG Global Real Estate, he was the finance and accounting lead of a complex foreign private investment structure that funded the development of the $1.5 billion International Finance Center in Seoul (IFC Seoul) — at the time, the largest foreign direct investment project ever undertaken in South Korea.  In connection with this role, Lamar also held a Board Manager position with SIFC Development Holding Sarl, a Luxembourg investment company that wholly-owned IFC Seoul, and responsible for the management of corporate governance, board operations and other regulated fiduciary activities for the company.  Lamar previously was an Audit Manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and led financial audits of institutional Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds. 

Lamar earned an MBA in Finance and Professional Accounting from the Graduate School of Management at Rutgers University. Lamar is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New York.