“With rents on the rise and housing in short supply, this is one of the nation’s most effective weapons in the fight against a crisis that remains stubbornly severe.”
After a lawsuit in California toppled the city of Berkeley’s efforts to replace gas stoves with clean electric energy in new buildings, fossil fuel industry groups are testing the same legal strategy in New York.
A fight over whether to demolish and rebuild apartments at the Chelsea-Elliott and Fulton Houses in lower Manhattan echoes a larger debate over how NYCHA should raise funds for its deteriorating housing stock, and how much of a say tenants will have in those plans.
Hudson Yards promised to be one of the most efficient sustainable neighborhoods in the U.S. But public energy consumption data tracked by the city shows many green-certified properties in the neighborhood are failing to outperform similar buildings nationwide.
It is time for New York to meet its public housing needs. It has the land. The technical ability to restore and replace NYCHA’s housing stock to meet tenant needs and low-carbon performance is there.
“Invoking environmental concerns to block construction is a classic page in the NIMBY playbook, but when suburbanites push back against dense, transit-oriented housing, they are not just hurting the people who urgently need housing in our city—they are hurting the climate for future generations of New Yorkers, too.”
In April 2015, Diana Florence was a longtime prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office thinking about retirement. But a phone call—about the death of an immigrant laborer at a building site—changed her plans. And it went on to upend how New York State addresses construction fatalities.
“The Building Code Council can and should take action now. They have the legal tools to change the code to include electrification in new constructions as a mechanism to achieve climate goals.”
Under the NY HERO Act, workers can request the creation of a workplace safety committee to assess the effectiveness of security protocols and raise health concerns, among other tasks. But so far, workers have little recourse when employers fail to comply. An amendment to the law awaiting the governor’s signature would create stricter penalties for noncompliance.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
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