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The Big #DirtyBuildings Polluting our Air
Introduction
The world’s nations must rapidly slash climate pollution to avoid increasing global temperatures by over 2º Celcius by 2050, global climate pollu-tion must plunge by over 80%, and fast, as set in the Paris climate agreement. New York City’s leaders claim that they will ensure that the city achieves these cuts
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. The Council even passed a law in 2014 commit-ting the city to over 80% cuts in the city’s climate pollution by 2050
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. However, New York City has no comprehensive, enforceable policy to slash pollution from its top pollution source: energy use in buildings, which is responsible for about 70% of the city’s climate pollution that fouls our air
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. Using public data and sources, this report doc-uments the city’s worst polluters, which include well-known buildings such as Trump Tower and Trump International Hotel and Tower; the Kush-ner-owned building at 666 Fifth Ave; One 57 on “billionaire’s row”; and the luxury building at 15 Central Park West. These are examples of large buildings over 50,000 square feet that while only 2% of the city’s buildings, collectively cause about half of the city’s climate pollution
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. The City Council, led by new Speaker Corey Johnson, should act to clean New York City’s air
and fulll pledges to cut the city’s climate pol
-lution by requiring that these super-polluters
upgrade to high energy efciency standard that
would slash their energy use and pollution by over 80% by 2050. In the process, the city can create many thou-sands of good jobs yearly in renovation, con-struction, and building services, which the city’s low-income communities of color badly need. Such policy would make New York City the
world’s leading city ghting climate change while
creating good jobs. Last year, Mayor de Blasio proposed and the Council only introduced half-measures that would not achieve 80x50 pollution cuts from large buildings. It’s time for New York City to move for-ward boldly to protect our collective future from climate catastrophe while creating good jobs. Newly-elected Council Speaker Johnson and the Council should lead the way to enacting this vital legislation.
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#DirtyBuildings
One57: Billionaire’s Row “Pencil Tower” is a Luxury Polluter
Crain’s New York Business
recently document-ed that the city’s brand-new super-luxury “pencil towers” are wasteful energy hogs
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. One 57, locat-ed at 157 West 57th Street, where the average apartment sold for just over $17 million dollars ($5,850 per square foot)
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has a Weather-normal-ized Source EUI of 287 kbtu/square foot, putting it in the top 5% of polluting buildings. In 2016, the building’s Energy Star score was an abysmal 2 out of 100.
15 Central Park West: Exclusive Address is a #DirtyBuilding
Home to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blank-fein
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, 15 Central Park West has been called the “world’s most powerful address”
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. It’s also among the city’s worst polluters, with the lowest Ener-gy Star score possible: 1 out of 100 in 2016. In 2016, the building was in the top 10% of polluters with a reported a Weather-normalized Source EUI of 222 kbtu/square foot. The average sale price of an apartment in the building is over $15 million (or $5,645 per square foot)
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Kushner’s 666 Fifth Avenue: A #DirtyBuilding at the Center of Trump Administration Corruption
666 Fifth Avenue has been a disastrous $1.8 billion investment for the Kushner real estate business, which wildly overpaid for the building before seeing its value evaporate. The building is at the center of a web of Trump family con-
icts-of-interest and corruption, with a bail out for the investment reportedly in the ofng by a
Qatar-government connected business
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. The Kushners badly need a bailout because the build-ing is bleeding big losses because they overpaid for the property. In the case of 666 Fifth Avenue, corrupt politics go with pollution: the building’s Weather-normalized Source EUI was 285 kbtu/square foot in 2016, putting it in the top 5% of polluters.
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