As president and chief financial officer of the Glen Oaks Village co-op in Queens, Bob Friedrich balked at the $50 million price tag for installing new heating and cooling systems for every building within the large complex, a step required by New York City\u2019s Local Law 97, which aims to slow climate change by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from city buildings.<\/p>\n
The low-hanging fruit such as installing insulation, updating windows and making valve changes had already been accomplished as part of the first phase of the law. Now it was time for the big stuff. \u201cMost co-ops are kind of on the financial edge, so adding more debt is not an answer,\u201d said Friedrich. \u201cA clean environment and affordable housing (should not be) a binary choice. You can have one without destroying the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glen Oaks comprises 134 buildings across 125 acres and houses roughly 10,000 people. Finding $50 to $70 million for the required upgrades is nearly impossible, Friedrich said. Instead, the co-op will probably end up paying the hefty fines, starting at $1 million per year, he said.<\/p>\n
In fact, many cooperatively owned apartment buildings across the city are looking toward the next deadline, 2030, with uncertainty about how to comply with the law while remaining financially stable. That uncertainty was compounded by new federal policy restricting or eliminating government assistance for green energy building renovations. Mayor Zohran Mamdani voiced commitment<\/a> to the city\u2019s climate law on the campaign trail, and he committed to pursuing tax breaks for co-ops to make renovations to comply with the law, but the mayor has not made the issue a central focus of his first weeks. City Hall spokesperson Casey Berkovitz said there will be \u201cmore to share on this work in the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration is working to deliver a more affordable city that New Yorkers can build a life in, and delivering a cleaner, greener city is an essential part of that work,\u201d Berkovitz wrote. \u201cThis administration continues to support Local Law 97, tackling climate issues that disproportionally impact working communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the city, 63,000 buildings are affected by Local Law 97, and about 45,000 of them are residential. The law applies to buildings greater than 25,000 square feet, including many of the city\u2019s 6,800 co-op buildings, which are collectively owned largely by middle-class New Yorkers. Expensive renovations and installations in and around a property can result in significant cost-of-living increases for co-op residents trying to live in one of the priciest cities in the country.<\/p>\n Going electric<\/p>\n Local Law 97 passed the City Council in 2019 with the goal of significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from large buildings, which are New York City\u2019s largest source of carbon emissions. The law imposed varying carbon emission limits based on the property type starting in 2024 and getting stricter over each following compliance period.\u00a0<\/p>\n So far, over 90%<\/a> of buildings have met the easier phase one requirements, which vary based on the size and type of the building. But only 43%<\/a> of buildings currently meet the requirements for the next compliance period in 2030, which requires reducing emissions by 50% below the 2024 carbon limit or face hefty fines calibrated to the amount they\u2019re polluting.<\/p>\n This next step in compliance entails electrification. The idea is to get buildings to stop directly burning fossil fuels for heating and cooling and instead to switch to heat pumps and other newer kinds of hardware that run on electricity. Currently electricity is produced by both dirty (coal and natural gas) and clean (wind and solar) sources, but as the electric grid becomes increasingly sourced from renewables, buildings that heat and cool electrically will seamlessly stop emitting greenhouse gases. In that way the city\u2019s Local Law 97 is interdependent with New York state\u2019s ongoing transition to renewable energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state laid out its climate goals in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, which called for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030 and a zero-emission grid by 2040, though New York is way behind on meeting these goals.<\/p>\n \u201cLocal Law 97 is a city law, but the grid is state regulated so the two need to work hand in hand,\u201d said Urban Green Council CEO John Mandyck.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many residents of New York City co-ops are supportive of addressing climate change. But co-ops are self-supporting networks of apartment owners who already face high mortgage and maintenance payments. They said they felt that if the government is going to target them as the problem, it should offer them some financial assistance.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one is paying us to do this. When we decide to go electric, we would have to pay for it,\u201d said Karen Goldman, treasurer of the University Towers Apartment Cooperative in Downtown Brooklyn. \u201cWe are in between a rock and a hard place.\u201d<\/p>\n New York\u2019s renewable energy transition took a major hit in July with passage of the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act.\u201d The bill reduced the window of time for wind and solar energy projects to qualify for tax credits while eliminating expansions for other credits related to renewable energies such as the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit<\/a> for heat pumps and other equipment that had been created in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.<\/p>\n Statewide progress was already lagging, and with the federal pullout faces additional obstacles. As of today, the state has achieved only 23% of its emissions reduction and 32% of its renewable energy generation goals<\/a> for 2030.<\/p>\n