Rent-stabilized tenants fight for an energy efficient retrofit — and win

For years, tenants at 792 Sterling Pl., an 82-unit rent-stabi­lized building in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, endured freezing winters due to inad­e­quate heating. ​“The heaters were completely useless; at times, I’d use my oven to try and heat the apart­ment,” said Chase Dimura, who rents a studio in the five-story building. Building owners Safdie Realty had installed wall-mounted elec­tric fan units that were very expen­sive to run and frequently failed to main­tain even legal indoor temper­a­tures, let alone adjust to resi­dents’ comfort. ​“The apart­ment would be in the mid-50s Fahrenheit at times,” Dimura said.

At 792 Sterling Pl., tenants resorted to buying space heaters. The combined cost of inef­fi­cient fan heating and addi­tional elec­tric radi­a­tors pushed some resi­dents’ monthly energy bills to more than $900. 

When Anna Nemetz moved into a one-bedroom at the building in early 2023, she was shocked to get an elec­tricity bill for $376. ​“It wasn’t even the full month, and I was already feeling pres­sure finan­cially,” she said. Even though New York City land­lords are required to provide heat, in some newer build­ings like this one, which was built in 2007, payment for the utility falls on tenants. ​“That whole first winter I felt very isolated and almost ashamed,” Nemetz said. Even though she raised issues with the building’s manage­ment, JSAF Property Management, her drafty windows and fan heaters kept her energy use high. 

The Challenge

New York apart­ments must be heated to 68°F during the day and 62°F at night during what’s called ​“heat season” — between October 1 and May 31, when the outdoor temper­a­ture is below 55°F. If they aren’t, a land­lord can face legal action in housing court.

At 792 Sterling Pl., there’s a long history of housing court action over heat and hot water, going back to 2011. Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which over­sees building condi­tions, has initi­ated multiple cases over the years in response to unre­solved heat and hot water viola­tions. In general, fines for a lack of heat start at $350, and can quickly reach $1,500 per day for repeated offenses. By the middle of 2024, the building had so many viola­tions and heat complaints that it was enrolled in a HPD heat sensor program to closely monitor condi­tions. In the past two years, liti­ga­tion against the building’s land­lord has resulted in fines of $68,550 for a lack of heat and hot water.

In addi­tion to base­line heating require­ments, many land­lords city­wide are consid­ering elec­tric alter­na­tives to oil and natural gas in an effort to meet carbon emis­sion caps and avoid fines under Local Law 97 (LL97). Buildings with more than 35 percent rent-stabi­lized units, like 792 Sterling Pl., have some flex­i­bility in meeting LL97’s carbon emis­sion targets, but must still imple­ment energy conser­va­tion measures. However, since the heating system at this Crown Heights rental is elec­tric, the land­lord is tech­ni­cally already in compli­ance with the law — without a gas or oil-fired boiler, the building is consid­ered emis­sion-free. Even though the existing heat system is inef­fi­cient, the land­lord is not facing LL97 penalties.

According to city data, a 10-percent reduc­tion in elec­tricity use at the building would generate $10,333 in savings. Yet these savings wouldn’t benefit the land­lord — rather, they would help out the indi­vidual tenants who pay the utility bills. So, with little incen­tive for manage­ment to upgrade to a better system, how could tenants get their land­lord to fix their inef­fi­cient, inef­fec­tive, and expen­sive heating? 

The Roadmap

Collective action has long been a strategy for rent-stabi­lized tenants to get land­lords to meet their oblig­a­tions. In March 2023, tenants at 792 Sterling Pl. began talking to each other about condi­tions in their apart­ments. Nemetz helped migrate a largely inac­tive Facebook group to Whatsapp, and encour­aged resi­dents to join. The group ulti­mately attracted over seventy tenants. ​“It was building soli­darity, building commu­nity, and the purpose was to talk about issues in the building, the main one being a lack of legal heat,” Nemetz said. 

From her window on the third floor, Nemetz could see HVAC equip­ment on the roofs of neigh­boring build­ings — condensers for a heat pump system. Nemetz wondered if this could be an alter­na­tive heating solu­tion to present to the land­lord. After some research, the newly re-formed tenant group concluded duct­less mini split heat pumps were the answer to their heat problem. ​“A lot of us had been in other apart­ments where we had these split units and it was fine,” Nemetz said. ​“It’s a little bit expen­sive, but nowhere near what people were paying [at 792 Sterling Pl.].”

As temper­a­tures dropped again in late 2023, land­lord inac­tion over the heat pushed the tenant orga­nizers to esca­late their efforts. They held a building-wide call-in day to 311, the city’s complaints hotline. Calls to 311 can lead to building viola­tions, adding to fines for the land­lord. Over the past two years 198 complaints have been made about the building; 132 are related to a lack of heat. The tenants also contacted their City Council and state repre­sen­ta­tives. They sought advice from non-profit legal clinics, getting tips on nego­ti­ating with the land­lord and infor­ma­tion about their rights. 

In the right circum­stances and with the right prepa­ra­tion, with­holding rent can be used as a tactic to get a land­lord to make repairs. Having spelled out the heat prob­lems to the land­lord, via HPD and in written commu­ni­ca­tions, this was the tenants’ next move. At least a dozen resi­dents with­held a portion of their rent, ​“between $500 to $700 for each apart­ment,” Nemetz said. In most cases this was the cost of their monthly heating bills. The deci­sion to go on partial rent strike wasn’t taken lightly. ​“It’s very scary to with­hold rent. People were really afraid, myself included,” Nemetz added. 

Withholding rent raises the risk of a land­lord filing an evic­tion case in housing court for non-payment. ​“If a tenant is sued for with­holding rent, they may raise the lack of services as a defense in the proceeding and seek an abate­ment from the court,” said Magda Rosa-Rios, director of housing group advo­cacy at The Legal Aid Society. A rent abate­ment can either be nego­ti­ated with the land­lord or may be ordered by a court. But for tenants, the prospect of liti­ga­tion can be daunting; it’s often an unmatched fight, even if your case is strong. 

The land­lord and building manage­ment acknowl­edged the tenant’s concerns, but it didn’t result in any mean­ingful changes. (Neither party responded to multiple requests for comment for this article.) From the tenants’ perspec­tive, collec­tive action got results. Within six weeks of the partial rent strike, the prop­erty manager agreed to a meeting where resi­dents again asked for heat pumps to replace the fan heaters. Management used the meeting to push for an end to the rent strike, but Nemetz said this was some­thing their group would not commit to without a time­line for upgrades. Soon enough, heat season was over, and there was still no lasting or building-wide solution.

Even so, as winter rolled around again in 2024, tenant organ­isers were hopeful. ​“The only time we ever heard a whisper of a plan was when we with­held rent,” Nemetz said, so they decided to commit to it again. This time the 15 or so tenants involved in the rent strike with­held their full rent. Within a few months they achieved a major victory. JSAF Management was replaced by Elite Management, and by early January 2025, plans had been filed with the Department of Buildings to replace the expen­sive fan heaters with high-effi­ciency heat pumps to provide both heating and cooling. 

The Project

The heat pump instal­la­tion began by late January. ​“It was amazing how quickly they jumped into action,” Nemetz said. Even so, the rollout was far from smooth. One of the chal­lenges with mini split units is the need to run refrig­erant lines throughout the building to connect to rooftop condensers. This added to the disrup­tion for resi­dents, who had to provide workers access to their apart­ments. ​“It was super inva­sive,” Nemetz said. Tarps were needed to protect personal belong­ings. The drilling was noisy. There were holes in the walls. The work created dust that wasn’t always cleaned up. Yet after what Dimura called a ​“grueling” few weeks, the instal­la­tion was complete and the units were functional. 

Nemetz was charged $144 for elec­tricity the following month. ​“I was hoping it would be lower, but I feel great about it,” she said. Other tenants saw a decrease of up to 60 percent in their utility bills. The mini splits deliver both heating and cooling, and since heat pumps are gener­ally more effi­cient than window AC units, the tenants are hopeful elec­tricity costs will decrease year-round. ​“The cost of elec­tricity is instantly less,” Dimura said.

According to city data, the esti­mated cost of installing the mini splits at 792 Sterling Pl. was $406,500, trans­lating to roughly $4950 per unit. Incentives are avail­able for these types of projects, and it’s likely the land­lord took advan­tage of finan­cial help provided by Con Edison’s Multifamily Clean Heat program. ​“Buildings using gas, oil, or non-heat pump elec­tric heating are all eligible,” said Elisabeth Ferrari, media rela­tions manager at Con Edison, adding that LL97 impli­ca­tions are not a factor in the eligi­bility screening for finan­cial incentives.

Although the effi­ciency savings will be enjoyed by the tenants, there are bene­fits for the land­lord as well. At the very least, costly fines and rent strikes for lack of heat should now be elim­i­nated. The land­lord hasn’t shared the precise reason behind the deci­sion to install heat pumps; It may have been the coor­di­nated tenant action, a persua­sive new prop­erty manage­ment company wanting to end rent strikes, finan­cial incen­tives bringing down the cost of heat pump instal­la­tions, or even just common sense around energy effi­ciency. Perhaps it was all of these. In any case, Nemetz is glad for the change, and is looking forward to warmer winters.