Four years ago, just before our son was born, my husband and I bought our first home: a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Queens.
Queens has a lot to recommend it; it is commonly known as the “middle” part of the City, with almost no slums, and a comparable lack of substantial wealth. It’s no small area: over 100 square miles, with a population of over 2.25 million. Home ownership rate is about 45%high for New York City. In addition, it is the most ethnically diverse county in the United States, and is where immigrants from all over the world have sought the American dream. Unfortunately, our politicians are working hard to put an end to that.
About a year ago I joined the board of my building, a no-nonsense cooperative that has about 160 apartments. In my first month as a senior board member, who has been on the board for many years and is about 20 years older than me, sent us all of the following emails:
“I just wanted to bring this topic to your attention… The Climate Mobilization Act of 2019 will have a major impact on our building. Our emissions must be cut by 60% in the next 10 years or so. If we fail, fines in the range of $150ka per year. We will have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade our system.”
For reference, this act, the Climate Mobilization Act, is an act of the City of New York, also known as Local Law 97 (LL97).
Since I am an MC’s daughter, I am generally familiar with this New York City law and with similar legislation at the state level, known as the Community Protection and Climate Leadership Act, as well passed in 2019. But our senior board member’s email has brought about concrete financial consequences that our building – and hundreds of others like it – will soon have to face to face.
My colleague’s email includes the following chart, created by this site, called the NYC LL97 Carbon Emission Calculator. This website has been endorsed by the City for buildings to use to calculate how much they must reduce their carbon footprint and how much fines they will have to pay if they do not install “no” heating. emissions” within the prescribed time limit. Here is the chart my colleague came up with for our building:
According to the chart, about 75% of our carbon emissions are due to the heat of our natural gas, indicated in green in the circles in the lower right part of the graph. City regulations prescribe a series of thresholds for building emissions reductions per square foot of space. By 2035, arguably we must reduce emissions by 60%, or face fines in excess of $100,000 per year. To reduce emissions by 60%, we had no choice but to convert our building away from the current gas heating system – fairly reliable, only a few years old and in working condition. good – to electric heating.
In addition to the emissions reduction regulations, the City regulation also prohibits new natural gas connections in new buildings under seven stories starting in 2024 and buildings over seven floors starting in 2027.
Policymakers busy writing these ordinances have yet to figure out how NYC’s grid can support such a transition. Spoiler alert: it can’t. They push even as California begins to realize the folly of asking people to buy an electric car. Supposedly New York will triple the load on the grid by forcing the electrification of all buildings and cars, while shutting down power plants that use reliable fossil fuels and try to replace them. them by solar and wind facilities that operate only part-time. Meanwhile, they have made no effort to demonstrate how this can work. See Manhattan Contrarian’s previous discussion, for example here. In addition to being a financial burden on New York’s middle class, there are serious quality-of-life concerns that need to be considered.
Assuming that they decide or are forced to do this, how much will the unfortunate cooperative owners pay? We still don’t have an estimate made for our building, but here are a few words from Warren Schreiberchairman of the board of another Queens cooperative, Bay Terrace Gardens 1, and co-chair of the Chairman’s Co-operative & Apartments (PCCC):
“Conversion to (electrical) heat pump There will be a price [the co-op] $2.5 to $3 million, excluding finance fees. This cost will increase the monthly maintenance cost by 25-30%. Shareholders who have lived here for 20, 30, 40 and 50 years will have to leave Bay Terrace Gardens in search of more affordable housing.”
The 25-30% maintenance increase is significant. In my building, we just had a relatively minor maintenance assessment due to rising gas prices. The total amount is $45,000, spread over 160 apartments, to be paid over three months. We announced this at our annual shareholder meeting in September. During the meeting, our accountants also informed everyone about other things that could potentially affect our building finances. including: rising labor costs, rising property taxes and inflation.
“This meeting is a call to action to vote Republican” I texted my friend on the board.
She replied: “You then.”
After the meeting, a shareholder came to me to complain about the review.
“If you’re going to do a maintenance review, you really need to give tenants more warning. It’s so expensive. That’s a $88 a month increase for me. “
In our building, $100 a month is not an amount that most residents won’t miss. Knowing that, I took the opportunity to warn this resident about the Climate Mobilization Act and much higher costs that NYC plans to impose on us.
“But that is crazy! They can’t do it – it will ruin the city! You know, this is the fault of the Republicans and the Democrats are too cowardly to stand up against them.”
How could anyone believe that when our city was under the exclusive control of the Democrats, and the “Green New Deal” was completely championed and championed by the Democrats, beyond me. But that’s NYC thinking for you. Even as the costs of Democratic-backed policies begin to pour in, there is still a sharp denial about who is to blame.
I’m trying to take action effectively. I wrote the following to my board members:
“My main concern in all of this is that it seems the city wants to push us to transition to thermal power. The cost to retrofit such a system to our building would be extraordinary, not to mention the cost per resident for thermal power would be a substantial personal expense. Furthermore, if hundreds of buildings in NYC suddenly depend on thermal power, I don’t have the confidence in the city grid to grow to that level of demand. The negative consequences of imposing this on co-op owners in NYC are immeasurable. I am witnessing a housing market collapse and financial ruin on middle-class citizens (evidence: Europe). What can we actually do to push back? “
I have not received a response from them. I’ll let you know if I do.
In the meantime, there are several police officers in the city who understand what is at stake. They defied the law against the law. I hope to join them.
FRANCIS MENTON adds: The cost of installing and operating a thermal power system is actually a smaller part of the problem. The much larger problem is that the City has embarked on a task to force all buildings (and separately, all cars) to convert to electricity without any actual plans for how to deliver the electricity needed. set. My recommendation to Jane and her Board of Directors is that they gather with some of their other colleagues in Queens and call a meeting with their State and City representatives, where they say, “We I can’t responsibly convert my buildings to thermal power until you can demonstrate a viable system to provide electricity without power outages. Otherwise, we risk freezing our owners in the winter.
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