Will new heating oil rules bankrupt co-ops?

Here's a story from this week's Riverdale Review.

By Brendan McHugh 

The metal sleeve runs all the way
down to the boiler in the basement.
It cost $90,000.

It started as an environmental issue and it’s now become an affordable housing problem. 

A new city-mandated rule requires all residential buildings to switch from No. 6 heating oil to at least No. 4—a cleaner, more expensive oil—by 2015, but then to No. 2 or natural gas by 2030.

Environmental activists across the city celebrated the mandate, but for Riverdale, the mandate will end up costing thousands. 

“You hear about a boiler conversion, but for the rest of the building, it’s a big expense,” said Community Board 8 housing committee chairman Thomas Durham. 

His building, at the corner of Waldo Avenue and Manhattan College Parkway, is one of hundreds in Riverdale that burns No. 6. At least it did, until this summer when the building underwent a conversion from No. 6 to a duel system of natural gas and No. 2 oil. If Con Edison shuts down the gas line, Durham’s building still wanted to have a heat source, hence the backup No. 2.

Jump below for the full story.