The purpose of this petition is to 

1) Ask New York City Council Members and other government officials not to price thousands of people and families out of their apartments in New York City.

 2) To accomplish this by asking City Council Members  to sponsor Intro 0772/2024 into law. This bill would allow the consideration of open and green spaces as part of a building’s gross floor area when calculating greenhouse gas emissions limits for garden apartments and buildings comprised of condominium and cooperative units and create civil penalty reductions for buildings comprised of condominium and cooperative units This bill would also allow courts and administrative tribunals to consider the median property value of residential buildings containing condominiums and co-ops as a mitigating factor in determining civil penalties for failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and would require that the Department of Buildings consider whether to grant an adjustment to a building’s emissions limit requirement based on that building’s prior installation of emissions-reducing technology such as solar panels, submetering, or oil to gas conversions.  

What is Local Law 97? Also known as The Climate Mobilization Act, it was passed into law by the NYC Council in 2019 and is the greatest unfunded mandate and penalties ever imposed on co-op owners. LL97 endangers the affordability of our homes as many of our outer borough co-op residents are seniors and working-class families. What does it require co-ops to do? LL97 requires costly retrofitting of your co-op's heating, hot water and ventilation systems in order to meet rigid state-of-the-art standards, regardless of ability to pay and regardless of need.

 The City Council exempted rent stabilized apartments, and private homes from these mandates and instead chose to impose these crushing costs on co-op residents which actually consist of both co-op owners and tenants living in co-ops. What is the Cost of Compliance and Penalties? Depending of course on the co-op (co-op layout, size of the co-op, age of the building replacing all boilers even if they are working well will cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

Failure to comply will result in annual fines that can range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars that increase each year. The kicker: Even if some co-ops spend millions on the most efficient boilers available today, the fines will not disappear. The “one-size fits all” algorithms used to determine carbon reduction don’t work in all buildings, which is why some of the most energy-efficient buildings in NYC will still be out of compliance. The only way to eliminate these penalties would be to remove and discard all of your working boilers and replace them with electric heating units in each apartment at a cost that is unimaginable. It would spell financial hardship and even financial ruin for many families who would in addition be paying the nation’s highest electric rates to heat their homes, and there is uncertainty whether the NYC electric grid can even accommodate this increased usage.  How are co-op shareholders expected to pay for Local Law 97 compliance? These crushing costs can only be paid through massive maintenance increases and yearly Special Assessments. Compliance costs and penalties will start in 2024 and rise dramatically through 2030 and after, unless it is delayed. (Please note that starting in 2024 even though Local Law 97 went into effect the City did give an extension of time for compliance to those making a good faith effort and the requirements get much stricter for 2030 

According to Bob Friedrich, president of Glen Oaks Village co-op board in Queens Local law 97 will cost each homeowner in Glen Oaks Village $7200 per year on top of the 5 percent maintenance increase this brings (and this doesn’t even include ordinary cost of living increases in maintenance coop owners might incur).  Other co-ops from Dorie Miller in Corona to Queensview in Astoria are struggling with how they are going to come up with the millions of $$ needed without borrowing so they won't run the risk of taking on more debt then they can handle.  So this NYC government mandate could increase monthly maintenance costs for some co-op owners by as much as 70 percent depending on how much their monthly maintenance is. And of course, most co-op owners still have to pay our monthly mortgage on top of that.   

There are about 800,000 co-op apartments in NYC and most of the co-op buildings are older housing stock which makes compliance more difficult and expensive. Many of us co-op owners in the outer boroughs are very worried about such a massive increase in our costs. If so many of us will no longer be able to afford to stay in our homes due to such massive increases in maintenance what will happen to us?  Our city is already currently experiencing an acute housing shortage. Where will thousands go when we can no longer afford to stay in our homes?  Affordable housing should be a human right for every human being.

There have not even been feasibility studies done to see if LL97 can even be truly and realistically implemented on our current grid for this massive increase in electricity usage.  But the most important issue we are dealing with here is actually the potential loss of thousands of affordable apartments.    

Right now in the City Council Intro-0772/2024 has 25 sponsors. One more sponsor is needed to get to half. The purpose of this petition is to get more sponsors for this bill in City Council so it can pass and 1000's of middle class, working class and fixed income co-op residents can afford their apartments and not worry about displacement