A Big Greenhouse Gas Win in NYC
Buildings emit a lot of pollution, and a law that could reduce it holds fast despite owners’ opposition
You might have missed it, but on the evening of April 1 environmental activists in New York City celebrated a big victory in shaping Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposal, a victory that will make the city’s polluting buildings greener. In a couple of years our air will be cleaner and more breathable.
The fight, which involved architects, environmentalists and politicians at all levels, started back in January. That’s when Cuomo, pushed by the real estate lobby, introduced a budget measure — called Part R — that would have undermined a two-year-old requirement that building owners retrofit their buildings to reduce their contribution to pollution.
That’s a big deal. Buildings are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions everywhere, and especially in New York City. According to the latest data from the City Council — updated in September 2018–-71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City are generated from buildings, 36 percent of which are residential. The buildings mainly responsible for the emissions, however, are those larger than 25,000 square feet.
According to Local Law 97, the centerpiece of the Climate Mobilization Act approved by the New York City Council two years ago, starting in 2024 medium and large buildings — 25,000 square feet and higher — will have to be retrofitted to make them more sustainable. The goal is to cut building emissions in half by 2030.
However, Part R offered a loophole. It stated that building owners would have the chance to offset the carbon emissions limits set by law by buying renewable energy credits from outside the city, meaning that they could avoid retrofitting their properties — often expensive — by investing in renewable energies elsewhere outside the state.
That measure was strongly endorsed by the Real Estate Board of New York, the trade association that represents real estate owners and professionals. Zachary Steinberg, the board’s vice president, reiterated support for the budget proposal during the public hearing on environmental conservation on January 27. In his testimony, he argued that local limits on greenhouse gas emissions are particularly burdensome to the owners of large buildings.
“Part R addresses this problem by providing a pathway for city building owners to comply with the law — and avoid penalties — by investing in renewable power in New York,” he said.
But Part R immediately drew strong opposition, based on the argument that it would threaten Local Law 97, providing building owners an excuse not to retrofit their buildings. ALIGN NY, a group of labor and community organizations that work to make New York’s economy more sustainable, led a strong campaign against the bill. Supported by the coalition Climate Work For All, which backed Local Law 97, they launched the hashtag #SaveGreenJobs on Twitter and, on February 25, they organized a press conference, gathering environmental organizations and politicians opposing Part R.
Anthony Rogers-Wright, Director of Environmental Justice at the nonprofit organization New York Lawyers for Public Interests said in an interview that Part R was nothing more than “greenwashing.”
“It’s kicking the can down the road,” said Rogers-Wright. “It’s actually saying ‘we can keep emitting as much as we did, because we invest in renewable energy projects.’”
Meanwhile disadvantaged communities, he said, would not receive any advantage from investments in Renewable Energy Credits, but would benefit from the jobs created for retrofitting buildings. The debate over Part R, he continued, was a matter not only of cutting carbon emissions, but also of environmental justice.
The campaign to ditch Part R brought key lawmakers into its corner, including state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, (D-Bronx), and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousin (D-Yonkers). On March 14, the two omitted Part R from their budget proposal, indicating it won’t be included in the final budget.
With Part R out of the picture, retrofitting buildings will be the only way for building owners to avoid fines and make their property energy efficient. Even though owners are not eager to retrofit their properties — the process is often expensive and inconvenient for them — the city is investing in encouraging and improving retrofits, with the aim of creating cheaper alternatives.
In 2018 the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority launched the RetrofitNY initiative, with the goal of bringing housing units “to or near net-zero energy use by 2025.” The project includes improvements in insulation, ventilation systems, and heat pumps for efficient heating and cooling.
In 2019 RetrofitNY financed a $1.8 million project led by architect Chris Benedict who, sponsored by the organization RiseBoro, presented the Casa Pasiva project. The goal is to retrofit a group of nine buildings in Brooklyn using a non-invasive method that allows workers to do the work with the tenants in place, and reduces the expenses for the building owners.
The buildings in Bushwick are all four stories high, but Benedict says that a similar model might be applied on a larger scale, to taller buildings. “The strategy is the same, maybe I would use different cladding,” she said.
This retrofitting method has also proved to be cheaper for the building owners. According to the report released by RetrofitNY, it is anticipated that Casa Pasiva will increase the savings on utilities by $24,000 over 30 years than if the buildings had undergone a regular kind of retrofit.
The Casa Pasiva construction is ongoing, and tall scaffoldings covered with a blue net are the only visible part of it right now. But this model might become one of the options for building owners to retrofit existing houses at lower prices and, at the same time, comply with Local Law 97.
The Real Estate Board of New York, however, continues to believe that Local Law 97 proposes a simplistic solution for a more complex issue. On April 5, the association released a statement, claiming that the emission caps set by the law do not take into account the reality of the buildings in New York City. “The carbon cap approach does not account enough for the difference in building typologies,” the statement said. It went on to argue that even building owners who comply with the obligations might face fines up to million of dollars per year, because the law does not account for differences in building densities. Appealing to the city to adopt a more “data-driven and pragmatic” approach to reach the goal set by Local Law 97, the statement added “The law is deeply flawed.”
The real estate lobby has time before the fines become effective, but as of now, environmental activists are still celebrating their latest victory. “Cuomo’s proposal was bad for our environment, bad for our communities, and bad for our economy,” Maritza Silva-Farrell, executive director of ALIGN, said. “Now building owners must step up and perform the necessary retrofits to meet emissions reduction standards.”
