Owners near boiling point over enviro law

With Local Law 97’s deadline looming ahead, nearly 200 owners and shareholders raised their concerns at the Presidents Co-op and Condo Council’s town hall meeting at the Queen of Angels Church in Sunnyside on July 26.

As part of the City Council’s 2019 Climate Mobilization Act, Local Law 97 aims to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions dramatically by 2050. It requires buildings over 25,000 square feet to be retrofitted, excluding public housing and government buildings. Since condo owners and co-op shareholders must pay for maintenance and capital projects, upgrades would weigh heavily on their wallets.

Failure to comply by January 2024 would result in financial penalties.

Some legislators are trying to alleviate LL 97’s effects on owners and shareholders.

Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside) has introduced legislation to allow for tax abatements and exemptions for improvements made to heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems to reduce carbon emissions.

Councilmember Vickie Paladino (R-Whitestone) introduced a bill, Intro. 913, to delay LL 97 for seven years. According to PCCC legal advisor Geoffrey Mazel, the delay would allow for a natural transition to renewable energy as older boilers age out.

A board member of a Manhattan co-op was concerned that the bill would accomplish little and potentially “[demonize] the idea of addressing climate change,” at which point PCCC Co-president and Glen Oaks Village Owners Co-op President Bob Friedrich tried to interrupt. A delay is the only feasible alternative until a “law that makes sense” can replace LL 97, he said.

Queensview, Inc. Treasurer Alicia Fernandez said the delay would allow shareholders to avoid fines while figuring out how to be green sensitive.

“We need to get away from this thought that these are two contradictory ideas. They’re not,” she said.

Friedrich and Warren Schreiber, the co-president of the PCCC and president of Bay Terrace Cooperative Section One, are the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of LL 97. The case was filed last year and still awaits a decision.

Before opening the floor for questions, Schreiber outlined five legal arguments against the law.

He said a “very important” argument against LL 97 regards its retroactive nature. The law penalizes stakeholders for “past decisions based on environmental regulations then in place” and demands them to “undo previous lawful actions at significant expense despite the prior efforts to improve energy efficiency,” he read.

The revenue generated from penalties would go toward the city’s general fund and “balance the budget of the city of New York,” Schreiber said, prompting attendees to boo.

A Flushing co-op owner later agreed, saying LL 97 is “not about the environment” and that other nations will continue to “burn dirty coal for decades.”

Several speakers said a full transition to electrical energy would be inefficient – Schreiber said a power outage could be disastrous, and Friedrich said co-op owners would pay “the nation’s highest electric rates” to heat their homes with “inefficient electric heat pumps in winter.”

He said many elected officials in 2019 shared former Councilman Costa Constantinides’ “dire projections of Earth-ending, doomsday scenarios.” He ascribed the Green New Deal to “a rigid and unbending political ideology that exists today in the City Council.”

Fernandez held a different view. “We understand that we have to participate and reduce carbon emissions, but we don’t support being driven to bankruptcy by poorly formulated legislation that unfairly penalizes co-ops and condos with untenable deadlines and outrageous fines,” she said, followed by applause.

A resident later said most co-op owners are not anti-climate change and that President Biden should declare a climate emergency to ensure proper funding for green initiatives.

Friedrich criticized the law’s “one-size-fits-all algorithm” to determine carbon reduction, saying some of the most energy efficient buildings in the city would still be out of compliance. Celtic Park President Charles Herzog attested to that, saying the building has undergone several green upgrades that would be irrelevant to LL 97.

Asked by a resident how board members of co-ops can responsibly convert their buildings to electric energy, Schreiber replied, “you can’t.”

Friedrich said, when asked by co-op owners about rising property taxes and maintenance costs due to LL 97, politicians proposed low-interest loans, earning a few laughs in the crowd.

“That would only create more debt, liability and higher costs for co-ops that are already pushed to the brim,” he said.

Mazel said he could not answer specific questions about enforceability and fines related to LL 97, but he expects new rules to come out “any day now.”

Attendees signed a petition urging Mayor Adams, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica) and Councilmembers Julie Won (D-Sunnyside) and Tiffany Cabàn (D-Astoria) to support Intro. 913.