Submetered Yonkers Tenants Show How PSC Order Allowed Landlord to Shift Million Dollar Electric Bill to Low Income Tenants
About 300 of the tenants receive section 8 subsidies, but adjustments due to the new submetered electric bills cover only half the cost. As a result of the PSC order, these low income tenants must shoulder hundreds of thousands of dollars of added new costs out of their meager budgets.
Further, the tenants show that although the PSC allowed submetering in the name of energy efficiency, and the landlord received NYSERDA money to install submeters in accordance with PSC policies for use of funds collected through PSC-created System Benefit Charges,
- the premises are still heated with baseboard electric heat lacking master thermostatic control (each radiator has a knob with only three settings),
- the building is poorly insulated and drafty,
- there was no provision for modernization of air conditioners, and
- there was no consideration of replacing the electric heat with a natural gas heating system.
The owner argues that these facts are not relevant and that halting submetering at Riverview II would impede PSC policies.
For further information see our prior post, Yonkers Tenants Ask PSC to Halt Submetering at Riverview Towers, and PULP’s website page on submetering.