The city’s zeal to enforce new environmental laws is set to crush the City’s middle-class housing stock under the weight of shockingly untenable fines.
At issue is the implementation of Local Law 97, which was passed in 2019. The ambitious law sets emissions limits for buildings over 25,000 square feet, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050.
The goals of the law are commendable. But the implementation rollout is a disaster, putting the financial future of condo and cooperative owners all over the city in jeopardy.
The City’s Department of Buildings is implementing the law and has rolled out a new filing system for coops and other buildings to submit their paperwork by the May 1 deadline.
This deadline is entirely arbitrary, and so are many of the requirements DOB is forcing buildings all over the city to follow.
Our co-op, Queensview, opened in 1950, and it has 14 buildings with 14 stories and a total of 726 apartments sitting on over 10 acres in Long Island City. Our buildings occupy about 20% of our acreage, with the remainder being greenspace, a children’s playground, a basketball/pickle ball court and parking lots. We have about 2,000 residents who are primarily middle-income, with a large population of retirees on fixed incomes.
To start, buildings like ours are not allowed to use the existing square footage measurements that are on file with the city to calculate their liabilities under Local Law 97. Instead, we must hire consultants to take new measurements, which is essentially a make-work program for these high-priced companies. When you ask the DOB for clarification on their numerous rules, they are vague, if not unresponsive, forcing buildings to fend for themselves and take their best guess at what the requirements actually ask of them.
Larger buildings and complexes with more resources may be able to navigate DOB’s new system, hire the consultants they need and get their filing in on time. But many buildings, especially smaller buildings with fewer residents and resources, may have to face the exorbitant late fees DOB has set.
The DOB has set late filing fees for compliance with the law at $0.50 per square foot per month, the maximum amount allowed by law. An average 200-unit co-op or condo of 200,000+ square feet could face a monthly late fee of over $100,000, which is untenable for hundreds of
thousands of homeowners across the economic spectrum.
At Queensview alone that fine would total $317,520 per month. By one calculation, if every co-op building in New York City missed the May 1 deadline, DOB would collect $1 billion in fines in just one month. Plus, this money would not go to any greater environmental goal, just to the
city’s general coffers.
These fines, which could lead to financial ruin for individual owners and entire buildings alike, are looming over the collective heads of owners like myself. When we ask DOB to slow down, or for more guidance, or to lower the fines–for any assistance at all–we are smeared by the agency and supporters of Local Law 97 as anti-environment.
That is certainly not true at Queensview. In the past three years alone, we have invested over $7 million on environmental upgrades, including new roofs, a community-wide real-time energy management system, efficiency upgrades to our heating system and more. Communities like ours all over the city are putting in similar work at their buildings.
A new report by the Center for an Urban Future found that many owners of rental buildings across the City have decided it will be cheaper to pay some fines rather than electrify their buildings. That is not an option for a cooperative like Queensview and so many buildings like ours. We cannot put the future of thousands of residents by ignoring the law and the fines that come with it.
All we are asking for is clarity from DOB, more time to allow cooperators to get their paperwork completed and a late fee schedule that is not so punitive as to be downright predatory. The city needs to support environmental justice without threatening thousands of New Yorkers with the loss of their homes.
Alicia Fernandez is the treasurer of the Queensview cooperative apartment complex in Long Island City.
