The City Council took one step closer to expanding protections for tenants against illegal evictions and mandating that all tenant-occupied buildings have access to cooling during the summer.
In a committee hearing, council members heard testimony on a slate of bills addressing the issues.
Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who is the primary sponsor of the air conditioning bill, acknowledged that the bills were “bold” but maintained that they were necessary — especially because extreme temperatures are the “number one climate killer.”
“It’s not wildfire, or hurricanes, or tornadoes,” he said. “It’s heat.” Though currently city landlords are required to provide heat in residential buildings during “heat season” from October 1 to May 31, there is no similar legal requirement for cooling during warmer months. Restler’s bill would establish a “cooling season” from June 15 to Sept. 15.
On Tuesday, the Council heard testimony from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which is responsible for maintaining affordable housing, along with the NYPD, a number of nonprofits, tenant advocates, and a representative of the Independent Budget Office. Broadly, attendees supported the legislation, but raised concerns around implementation, fairness, and viability that they hoped the bills’ eventual language would address.
A number of attendees had the same issue with the proposed cooling bill, they said: while requiring building owners to install air conditioners would be a step towards ensuring the most vulnerable New Yorkers are kept cool in the summer, the cost of running them would still fall on tenants.
“This premise of providing appliances is only as good as people using them, particularly at times of most need,” said Sarah Parker, a senior researcher at the New York City Independent Budget Office.
Though low-income New Yorkers can apply for assistance to help heat their homes through the city’s Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), the portion of federal funds allocated for cooling assistance is substantially smaller, and only pays for installation of appliances — not the energy it takes to run them.
“Heat funds as it is currently structured will not help New Yorkers pay for electric utilities in the summer months,” said Parker.
Danielle Manley, a policy manager at the sustainability nonprofit Urban Green, had similar critiques of the bill.
“Utility costs are a major barrier because those that need cooling often can’t afford to pay,” Manley testified.
In general, Black and brown New Yorkers who live in low-income neighborhoods are already the most vulnerable to heat-related deaths. Even though only around 11% of New York households don’t have air conditioning — over 250,000 households — an additional 15% don’t use their air conditioners, with half of those people stating a desire to cut costs or conserve energy as their reason.
Manley also emphasized the conflict between installing more air conditioners and meeting city and state climate goals.
“Most buildings won’t have heat pumps,” she said, referring to high-efficiency devices used for temperature regulation. So, if landlords had to meet the requirements of the bill as it stands now, “inefficient window units will become the most common,” she said.
HPD, which enforces the city’s heating requirements, said the agency would have to significantly increase its staff in order to accommodate a similar timeline for inspections if new cooling requirements were to be put into law.
“We want to have a real conversation about what those demands would be on HPD so that we can plan for it and fund it appropriately to make sure that enforcement is successful,” said Deputy Commissioner Lucy Joffe.
Along with the air conditioning bill, attendees testified largely in support of legislation brought by Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) aimed at increasing protections for tenants: listing unlawful evictions under tenant harassment, increasing the rights of occupants who may not have a lease, changing lockout procedures, posting notices on rent-stabilized units, and increasing penalties on landlords for unlawful evictions.
Though most supported the bills’ aims to curb illegal evictions, there were a few common critiques: testimony from legal advocates cautioned against denying subsidies to landlords who engage in unlawful evictions, since it could have negative consequences for tenants who rely on housing subsidies like CityFHEPS.
Multiple hearing attendees also expressed concerns about giving the NYPD discretion to intervene in lock-changing procedures — including HPD, who shared that NYPD themselves had concerns with the bill as drafted. When someone is evicted, the landlord may change the locks to prevent them from reentering. If the bill were to pass, the NYPD would be responsible for letting tenants back in and providing them with keys.
Nurse, who proposed the lock-change initiative, said that she would love to work with a different agency but that the NYPD is the only one that could respond to calls 24/7. “There’s no other agency that has the power to change the lock at one in the morning when a super fails to show up, or when a landlord fails to show up,” she said.
In a statement released after the hearing, the New York Apartment Association — a newly launched trade organization representing private multifamily building owners — raised alarms over Restler’s “unfunded AC mandate,” saying requiring landlords to install ACs would lead to increased rents.
“The City Council needs to understand that unfunded mandates drive up rents and make the city unaffordable,” said NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos in a statement.
Now that public testimony and comments have been collected on the bills, the Council will adapt the bills’ language before ultimately bringing them to a vote.
