Transcript: Isley & Eisenberg - Main Street WIRE

The Main Street WIRE interviewed Douglas Eisenberg, President of Urban American, and
Doryne Isley, who represents Urban American on Roosevelt Island, on Wednesday,
February 18 (2009), on the subject of electrical submetering of Roosevelt Landings
(formerly Eastwood – 510-580 Main Street). Asking questions for The WIRE was editor
Dick Lutz; the interview was conducted at Starbucks on Roosevelt Island.
The Main Street WIRE: I want to start by asking the same question that I asked you, Doryne,
when we last talked about this. Is this building financially viable without offloading a major part
of the electrical cost to the tenants?
Doryne Isley: The submetering has a dual purpose. It has absolutely nothing to do with our
financial ability to sustain the building. Everybody is submetering. The reason for doing it is to
conserve electricity. We’re not in control of tenant electrical usage. The only way to get control
of that is to submeter – to put the responsibility [for conservation] directly on the residents.
WIRE: But submetering does change your financial picture.
Isley: No, it really doesn’t. We have to lower our rents.
WIRE: But you lower your rents by the amounts DHCR prescribes and the actual cost of
electricity is higher than that, you’ve offloaded that excess to the residents, right?
Isley: I think at this point it’s unfair to everyone to look at that first billing as being what the
electrical costs will be and what our billing will actually be. That’s what the electrical cost has
been in the past, but I think moving forward into the future you’ll see a great reduction in usage
by the residents.
WIRE: Down to the level that’s being prescribed by the reduction?
Isley: We’re not the first development to submeter. We’re not the first development where
residents have experienced high bills on the first go around of sample bills. It’s a learning
process. But what I have learned in talking to other managers is that eventually, everyone comes
in line. Eventually, very few exceed their allowance.
WIRE: But in this case there is some people whose electricity costs are as much as four or five
times the allowed...
Isley: On the first go, it was, yes. But let’s see a couple of bills.
Douglas Eisenberg: The data clearly shows that the average use in studios and ones and twos
was within shouting distance of the DHCR numbers, or the revised DHCR numbers, and that a
lot of residents are below the utility allowance, and some are above. And as Doryne said, this is...
these shadow bills reflect periods of time when residents were not responsible for the payment of
those bills. Their habits and behavior were the same that they have been since they moved into

the property when the owner was paying the bills. I think we can all agree that this is not about
creating a profit center for us. This is for conserving energy. We think that if everyone does
their part this is a good thing for everyone.
WIRE: I have to say, because you put such an emphasis on conservation as the purpose, that
what I’m hearing from residents is that they see this as a way of making the building financially
viable, and they see it as a major way of offloading a major expense of the building’s expense
onto residents. They fear the building is untenable, financially. I think you have to predicate the
possibility that the DHCR allowance is not big enough if a person receives a sample bill that is
five times what the DHCR numbers mandate.
Eisenberg: I understand.
WIRE: You still have a major discrepancy there in the amount of electricity charge an individual
tenant is going to face.
Eisenberg: Look, I pay my electric bill every month, Doreen pays her electric bill every month.
When I leave a room, I shut the lights off. I make sure windows are closed. I’m careful about
my use of electricity.
WIRE: You think that’s going to do it in this building?
Eisenberg: What I’m saying is that if people are careful and are mindful of how they use
electricity, I’m confident that the bills will come down. I’m also confident that we’re going to
make every effort to help residents winterize their apartments do everything we can to help them.
If a resident decides to leave a TV on all day, their lights on all day, and have three computers on,
or who knows what...
WIRE: You’re talking about me...
Eisenberg: Look, that’s a choice that a resident makes, and they’re going to have higher
electricity bills as a result of the choices they’re making. To the question of whether or not the
building is financially viable? It’s financially viable now, and it’s financially viable if we
submeter. We’ve done nothing since we bought this property but invest in it.
WIRE: But tenants are fearful that the shadow bills will go up to a fairly large real number in the
very cold months. The DHCR allowances are area-wide, apparently not intended for electric heat
situations. This building has electric heat and we know that’s an expensive way to heat a place.
It still strikes me that it’s really difficult to imagine that these bills, even after turning off the
lights, leaving the TV set off, and turning off the three computers, it’s hard to imagine that
they’re going to be able to get their bills down to the DHCR allowance, which seems not to be
predicated, as best I can tell, on electric heat. Is there a way compensate for that?
Isley: There are other buildings that are similar to ours that have the same similar heating
elements that also receive subsidy allowances. They have no problem. I see no reason why our

uilding cannot reach the same stage.
WIRE: You’re talking about 2 and 4 River Road.
Isley: Correct.
WIRE: You see those two situations as being parallel?
Isley: Yes.
WIRE: In order to be parallel wouldn’t you have to do in an engineering study, do all the
insulation and weather stripping and the rest before going into the shadow bills phase?
Eisenberg: Can I ask you a question?
WIRE: Yes.
Eisenberg: We live in a time that our government is asking us to do everything we can to
conserve energy and be efficient, and this is a way to do that, unequivocally.
WIRE: I don’t think anybody’s against conservation.
Eisenberg: This is a way to achieve that goal.
WIRE: Right. But in terms of a parallel between 2 and 4 River Road and Easgtwood, the
buildings are of a severely different age.
Isley: Not severely. Ten years maybe. Ten years difference. And we have new windows. They
don’t. When you start measuring apples to apples and oranges to oranges...
WIRE: But the normal way – didn’t they carry out an engineering study in advance of going into
the submetering mode?
Isley: We are all required to do that.
WIRE: You’ve done that?
Isley: Yes.
WIRE: And what about the other conservation measures that would reduce electricity use? I
know you have done a lot, but there’s probably significantly more that could be done.
Isley: In all fairness to us, we bought the building. You buy the building “as is.” We have this
world-wide mandate that’s coming down to conserve energy and everybody’s moving in that
direction. All of the buildings that have been master-metered are under this mandate to do

something to conserve energy. We attempt to do it the best way we can, given the building that
we inherited. But no one gives us credit for spending $5 million on windows. No one gives us
credit for the fact that, annually before now, we have done winterization for our residents.
There’s a lot of credit that we’re not given and there is a lot of fine tuning and nitpicking – you
know, “Let’s look and see what they didn’t do.” But no one at all is saying, “You know what?
They went in there and put in new windows for $5 million.”
WIRE: In the article, I’ll make a definite note of that.
Isley: Please do.
WIRE: But then you’ve still got the situation where a tenant getting $1200 in Social Security,
paying 30% of that for housing, getting a bill that’s five times what the reduction is. His out-ofpocket
housing cost may triple.
Eisenberg: I think you make a great point. But we’re not in the business of creating vacancies
or raising rents as fast as we can. We’re in the business of making sure those people have a
decent place to call home, that they have a building which has an infrastructure that is good and
is working, that the elevators are working, and that things get taken care of. Whether they’re
paying $300 or $3,000, they’re all treated the same, with absolute dignity. That’s what we’re all
about. And we think that one of things we can do here is that this building can be run more
efficiently, that we can conserve energy, and that’s why we went down this path. We spent a lot
of capital to do this. It’s not instant payback by any stretch of the imagination. The goal here is
to work with the residents, because I think that a lot of the residents believe in conserving energy.
They believe the same things we do. Everybody wants the same result. The nitpicking is
counterproductive. Comments fly back and forth and you’re the big bad landlord and you’re out
to get us. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. The people know Doryne at this property, and
people who know me, they know that’s not the case. But instead of sitting down at the table and
figuring out a solution, it’s “Hey, let’s have a press conference and ruffle some feathers and see
we can stir up.”
Isley: In all fairness to us, we’ve been talking about submetering for a long time, and we’ve
been talking about the submetering with the local politicians and their representatives. This is
not something we all of a sudden decided we were going to do. We were talking about this
minimally for six to nine months in advance. Where were all of their comments then? Where
were all of their concerns then? I met with them monthly.
WIRE: You feel betrayed?
Eisenberg: No, Listen, government officials are there to protect the people that live in their
districts and they do a very good job, and I think it’s their job to make sure that every stone is
turned over and every issue is resolved, and maybe some of these issues should have been
resolved earlier, and maybe that would’ve made this an easier process. But it is what it is, and
we are who we are, and all we’re saying now is that we want to work with the residents and
elected officials to figure out the best solution so that, at the end of the day, we have a building

that’s conserving energy and we have residents who are happy to live there and have a decent
place for them to call home. It’s really simple and to make more of that is not necessary.
WIRE: Let’s look at the worst-case scenario for a minute...
Eisenberg: The worst-case scenario is the building doesn’t end up being submetered and we
invested money in submetering it and we never get that money back. That’s the worst-case
scenario. But the silver lining, hopefully, would be that all 1003 residents signed up to get their
apartments winterized and we’re able to conserve energy that way.
WIRE: The worst-case I was actually thinking of when I started asking the question was this:
Let’s say you go through this, submetering starts, and someone comes in and says, “Look, I was
paying $300 a month. I do everything I can to conserve electricity. I turned everything off, and I
let my apartment get cold. But my electric bill has tripled my cost of housing.” What do you do
then?
Isley: I think we need to get to that point before we can speculate. We need to get to that point
and see whether or not we actually do have people in that category, and how many people they
are, and who they are.
WIRE: Some fear they’re going to end up there, so rather than wait, wouldn’t it be better to say,
“We have a plan...”
Eisenberg: I’m sure that you know better than I that, when it comes to residents, Doryne will –
as long as people are being straightforward – Doryne will go to bat for them. She has done it
time and time again when it comes to reinstatement of Section 8 vouchers, and time and again
with regard to what size unit people should be in. That’s something that I don’t think we should
lose sight of because if, indeed, you fast-forward and submetering produces a problem like that,
all they have to do is say, “Hey, I’ve got an issue,” and we’ll deal with it. I think we’re the first
ones who are going to say, “Yeah, sure, let’s figure this out together. Let’s look at your energy
uses, Let’s make sure your apartment is weatherized, and if we’ve got a situation here, let’s deal
with it.”
WIRE: I sense from what you’re saying that your intention is that nobody will have to leave the
building because their electricity costs are higher than they can afford.
Eisenberg: That is not the intention here at all.
Isley: That would be disastrous.
Eisenberg: I understand that that probably makes for distress when an advocate makes a
statement like that or an elected official makes a statement like that.
WIRE: You’re saying that it’s not going to happen.

Eisenberg: I’m saying that if we have anything to do with it, it won’t happen. Now, the other
thing you should keep in mind is that the people who work at DHCR are incredibly mindful of
the residents and they are there to make sure that the residents are taken care of. They’re
watching over them, to a certain extent. They will make sure that people with disabilities have
the right allowance and the senior citizens who are on fixed incomes will be okay.
Isley: We were the ones that brought that to the table when we were sitting down with DHCR –
to take into account the residents who have equipment that needs to be on at all times.
WIRE: I understand that you can’t make a blanket guarantee that, no matter what somebody
does with her or his energy, they’re not going to be evicted, or that they won’t have to move if
they can’t bring their electricity costs down. One of the things that [Assemblymember] Micah
Kllner is talking about in this context is that he thinks that there is a contradiction in the lease –
that the landlord must provide heat but submetering includes heat when the tenant has to pay for
the submetered electricity. He sees a conflict in that. Do you see a problem there?
Isley: I’m not an attorney, but I don’t see a problem there. This matter couldn’t have gotten
through the initial acceptances if there was a problem with the language in our lease. We’re very
confident in our application is valid and complete.
WIRE: So, I gather your message, overall, is, “Just don’t worry.”
Isley: I think that between us, the agencies, the politicians, the residents, I think we’re all
reasonable people and I believe that reasonable people can come to the table and come up with
reasonable solutions to problems – and I believe we can do it in this case.