Greening New York City's Zoning Rules

As I reported a few days ago, buildings account for at least three-fourths of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions. Owners can nonetheless reduce their carbon footprints – and lower their electricity bills — by adding insulation and installing features like solar shades. But how many owners of the city’s million or so existing buildings are willing to foot the upfront costs to save energy in the longer term? How will things change for architects and developers once the zoning rules are relaxed?

For answers to these and other questions, we turned to Howard Slatkin, director of sustainability for New York’s Department of City Planning, and Paul Freitag, the director of development in New York for the Jonathan Rose Companies, an environmentally minded real estate firm.

Following are excerpts, edited for brevity and clarity:

Q.

Can you give some examples of the kinds of obstacles that building owners or developers have faced up to now in trying to renovate or construct with energy efficiency in mind? Or in seeking to incorporate renewable energy? Has the problem been the red tape involved in securing permits? Outright bans on certain elements?

A.

Howard Slatkin: We worked closely with architects, engineers, developers and other experts to identify the zoning obstacles to building or retrofitting green buildings. For example, a residential building wanted to add solar panels on its rooftop but couldn’t receive a permit to do this because they would exceed the maximum permitted height. As part of an affordable housing rehabilitation project, an architect wanted to add insulation outside the building and keep the tenants in place during the work, but zoning didn’t allow this because zoning would have counted insulation toward the building’s floor area, bringing it over the allowed maximum. A homeowner wanted to add a green roof on top of the row house he was renovating but was told that this would exceed a height limit.

Zone Green will allow extra “floor area” for building insulation, allow any building to place solar panels on its roof and permit shading devices to project from building facades — unlocking as much as $800 million in potential energy savings every year. Zone Green will also permit new rooftop greenhouses to exceed height limits, encouraging the cultivation of fresh local food and serving as a great way to educate our children about the environment.

A.

Paul Freitag: One of the simplest examples of an innovation that was being stifled by outdated codes is the relocation of boiler rooms to the roofs of buildings. Boiler rooms have traditionally been located in the basements of buildings because that was where the coal was delivered. Given that coal deliveries haven’t been common since the last revision of the zoning code 50 years ago, it make more economic sense to locate natural gas-fired boiler rooms on the roof.

In doing so, you don’t need to build a costly fireproofed chimney through the building which also takes up the equivalent space of a large closet on every floor. A boiler also operates more efficiently on a rooftop because the long chimney needed to exhaust a basement boiler also reduces its efficiency. The Zone Green amendment now allows boiler rooms to be a permitted obstruction on a rooftop, which should help promote the use of higher-efficiency boilers on rooftops across New York City.

Q.

Are the zoning changes intended to target certain types of buildings more than others, and certain vintages of buildings?

A.

Mr. Slatkin: All types of buildings in the city — residential, commercial, community facility, industrial — could benefit. Some aspects of the changes would affect certain types of buildings more than others. For instance, existing residential buildings are more likely than industrial ones to be built to a maximum height limit and would be more likely to benefit directly from the allowance for rooftop solar panels.

The external insulation provisions are more likely to be significant for existing detached or semidetached residential buildings, which have more exposed exterior wall, than for attached buildings or for high-rise buildings with glass curtain walls.

Q.

What’s the first thing that you would readily do now that you couldn’t do before? What would you go after – green rooftops? Wind turbines?

A.

Mr. Freitag: One of my favorite green innovations is the use of exterior solar shades, which block the heat of the summer sun from entering a building. This is actually an old strategy, and historic photos show window awnings used extensively in New York. Yesterday’s awnings have now been reinvented as fin-like elements, mounted above windows, that are angled in such a way to block the high summer sun while letting in the lower winter sun to allow buildings to be naturally warmed by sunlight in the wintertime.

We used these on the south facade of our buildings prior to the Zone Green amendment; however, approval took 18 months and required review by two different agencies. I am pleased with the prospect of being able to use exterior solar shades without having to go through all that.

Q.

Can you give us other examples of what owners can do now that they couldn’t before – or that they can achieve much faster under the changes?

A.

Mr. Freitag: I am hopeful that the next generation of electricity-producing solar panels will be more efficient and less expensive, which will allow buildings across New York to put their roofs to work generating electric power. The Zone Green amendment gives clarity to the allowable placement and position of solar panels on rooftops, which should encourage adoption of this technology.

One point, though: the city still needs to confirm that the zoning code is aligned with the other city codes like the building code, energy code, etc., to make sure that there are no inconsistencies.

Q.

The changes are meant to encourage new green construction as well as energy retrofits in older buildings. How many buildings are expected to undertake the green renovations and design under these regulations? Have many expressed interest?

A.

Mr. Slatkin: We’ve had great interest from the development and construction industries in making it easier to go green. Already, we’ve seen in Brooklyn a proposal for the largest rooftop greenhouse farm in the world, at 100,000 square feet, made possible by Zone Green.

Q.

What do you expect to be the most popular upgrade?

A.

Mr. Freitag: One green element that seems to be growing in popularity is the use of green roofs. Building owners and developers are recognizing that they can get many benefits from the roofs, including improved insulation, reduction of the heat island effect, passive storm water management and even the opportunity for food production. But I believe what is really driving their popularity is the realization that green roofs are essentially gardens with views. By giving access to them and incorporating seating areas, they become a wonderful amenity.

Q.

How important do you see solar power becoming in the city’s energy mix?

A.

Mr. Slatkin: The city’s solar generation capacity has quadrupled in the past several years and continues to grow. Solar energy achieves peak generation on hot, sunny summer days — exactly when we experience peak demand. So even where it is a relatively small component of the energy mix, solar relieves stress on our electrical grid, making brownouts and blackouts less likely, and reducing the need for dirty generators that operate at times of peak demand.

Q.

Can you cite a local example of a reduction in energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions as a result of a green improvement?

A.

Mr. Freitag: One of our recent projects was the green renovation of almost 200 units of existing affordable housing in a row of 100-year-old buildings on West 135th Street in Harlem. These renovations were done with the tenants in place and therefore focused on less invasive strategies including boiler replacements, increasing insulation and a rooftop solar installation. After tracking performance for couple of years now, we are seeing a 36 percent reduction in energy costs.

Q.

These improvements cost money. What is the incentive for buildings to undertake them? Will the new rules make upgrades more cost-effective for owners? How do the costs of the work stack up against energy savings; can you give an example?

A.

Mr. Slatkin: The main incentive for these type of improvements is the value they bring to the building — the energy savings from better insulation, the reduction in electric bills from solar energy, the amenity and cooling value of a green roof. There are also a range of other incentives out there today — tax incentives for solar energy and green roofs, for instance.

A.

Mr. Freitag: Interestingly, because of the public investment in affordable housing, there have been studies. The results indicate that even in affordable housing, where the budgets are very constrained, a 1 to 2 percent additional investment in construction costs can yield buildings that perform at 20 to 30 percent greater efficiency while also promoting tenants’ health and overall quality of life.

The original article can be found here.