What are we going to do with this roof?

For condo­miniums, roof work is never just that. As the literal roof over everyone’s head, a project to replace roofing quickly becomes a symbol for all the nego­ti­a­tion, compro­mise, and buy-in needed from a whole herd of inde­pen­dent owners. It raises ques­tions about finances, sustain­ability, and commu­nity; it is a refer­endum on values and a prod towards the messy work of democracy.

For many years, 430 Clinton Ave, a six-story, 47-unit condo built in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn in 1930, had a great roof, with a brick parapet framing a stun­ning view of the Manhattan skyline. But more recently, tenant-owners were constantly patching leaks. It got so bad that one top-floor owner decided he was ready to sell.

When it became clear in the late 2010s that inter­me­diary patches would no longer cut it, and that a new roof was a must-have, the building’s condo board began slowly setting money aside for a replacement. 

The Challenge

The new roof presented a blank slate of possi­bil­i­ties, but soon, conflicting dreams bubbled up. 

The resi­dents had differing views about whether to install solar panels or a rooftop garden on their new roof. Both options can work to combat climate change: Solar panels offer a renew­able energy source, while green roofs can help combat local warming caused by the urban heat island effect.

The garden option was appealing to some resi­dents, who had never had roof access before. But that didn’t sit well with Florence Adu, who inten­tion­ally bought a unit on the top floor to avoid noisy upstairs neigh­bors. ​“I was not down for the rooftop terrace,” Adu said. 

Other owners in the building preferred solar panels, which would lower energy bills and reduce fossil fuel use. 

By 2021, the building had saved $100,000 towards roof work and formed a roof committee to decide on a path forward. Adu, who has a back­ground in real estate and urban plan­ning, joined as board secretary. 

Another resi­dent, Lucas Parra, joined with the explicit goal of cham­pi­oning solar. ​“I ended up being the pres­i­dent for two years,” he said. ​“But my only goal was to get this done.”

Their first hurdle was convincing other owners that solar was the right choice. At the time, there was consid­er­able energy behind a garden. ​“Of course it would be fantastic to have a pool here, and a deck and lawn chairs and green and so on,” Parra told Skylight in 2024, standing on the roof, remi­niscing with the winter sun low behind him. ​“And that sounds fantastic, but it’s never going to happen. I had a much more modest goal: Just solar.” 

Parra spent part of his child­hood in Germany, where saving energy was a deeply ingrained value. But in America, he said, ​“the culture here is of waste.” He wanted to change that — at least in his building.

In the end, said Parra and Adu, the deci­sion against the garden came down to cost: Not of the work itself, but of the liability insur­ance they would have to carry each year to allow roof access.

Solar, on the other hand, would save money — a goal that felt partic­u­larly rele­vant as heating costs for their gas boiler rose during the pandemic. As another nice perk, solar also came with a one-time tax credit for each owner through the federal Investment Tax Credit for resi­den­tial solar energy; according to Parra, eligible share­holders received around $2,600.

“It’s kind of like a no-brainer,” Parra said.

The Roadmap

To get the work done, Parra relied heavily on the newly emerging land­scape of advi­sors, contrac­tors, and financiers in New York, designed specif­i­cally to facil­i­tate clean energy projects. First, he reached out to a nonprofit called Solar One, which offers tech­nical assis­tance to building owners eval­u­ating poten­tial solar projects. Solar One then connected him with NYC Accelerator, a city agency that offers high-level energy advising. 

Representatives from the agency weighed in not only on the new solar project, but the building’s energy deci­sions more broadly, and Parra now wishes he’d talked with them sooner. As soon as he got in touch, he discov­ered an energy misstep that now haunts him: On their building manager’s recom­men­da­tion, the board had recently spent another $100,000 to replace their gas boiler. 

Talking to NYC Accelerator, Parra real­ized that the new boiler likely wasn’t even needed. Instead, they advised, the building could have invested in a more effi­cient elec­tric heating for water, and used a smaller boiler just to power the steam heat for the building. ​“So instead of saving energy, we’re prob­ably wasting a tremen­dous amount,” Parra said.

To Adu, 430 Clinton’s misstep was not unique: She says many prop­erty managers in the city lack the exper­tise to help build­ings navi­gate sustain­able upgrades.

The board even­tu­ally brought in a new prop­erty manage­ment company, Square Indigo, which had expe­ri­ence managing energy effi­ciency projects. Adu was opti­mistic that they could help the building be more strategic about sustain­ability in the future. ​“I think it’s a fine balance of us helping them to build their capacity while we move and grow in different ways,” she said.

For the roof replace­ment and solar project, thank­fully, talking with NYC Accelerator paid off. It connected Parra with NYCEEC, a non-profit that offers favor­able loan terms specif­i­cally for decar­boniza­tion projects based on envi­ron­mental impact.

NYCEEC offered 430 Clinton a low-interest loan that covered both the solar panels and the roof itself, because both offer climate bene­fits. 430 Clinton’s $100,000 capital fund served as collat­eral. Unlike the other investors Parra talked with, which funded general condo main­te­nance projects at steep interest rates, NYCEEC shared Parra’s vision — they ​“wanted to do this for the good of it. And they gave us a very good rate,” Parra said.

The hardest part, Parra says, was making a case to the other resi­dents. For a loan this size, the building bylaws said that Parra and Adu would need to call a vote by all the owners in the building. It was the first time in their memory that they had trig­gered that require­ment. They put together a presen­ta­tion based on the finan­cial bene­fits of solar, and were relieved when the vote went through.

The Project

With direc­tion and funding in place, 430 Clinton now needed to iron out the details. What kind of solar instal­la­tion would make most sense for the condo’s needs? 

Residents first wondered if rooftop solar could reduce energy bills for each unit, so Parra looked into options.

Some build­ings combine solar with battery storage to manage their own elec­tricity, gaining some inde­pen­dence from utility compa­nies. But batteries are expen­sive, and that approach usually only pays off for larger roofs. ​“People talked me out of it real quick,” said Parra.

430 Clinton opted instead to connect solar panels to the larger elec­trical grid via a stan­dard elec­tric meter. The elec­tricity usage and bills are then calcu­lated through a process called net metering: The meter counts each kilo­watt used, and sends the tally to the utility. 

On days when the solar panels don’t generate enough energy to meet the building’s consump­tion needs, it pulls the rest from the utility grid, like any other building. When the building uses only the elec­tricity gener­ated by the solar panels, it doesn’t need to pull energy from the elec­trical grid, and there­fore isn’t charged. And if more solar energy is produced than is needed, the building saves money: When excess energy is produced, the dial on the meter actu­ally counts back­wards, reducing the tally and reducing the building’s monthly bills.

They initially consid­ered connecting each unit in the building to the panels through a process called sub-metering, but it quickly became clear that this would be a lot to manage. ​“You get a single meter and then every­body connects to that. But then [I would be] respon­sible for the bills, for collecting the bill. If people don’t pay, you’re screwed,” said Parra.

Eventually, the board decided to go with an easier option: Using net metering to power just the building’s common spaces and ameni­ties, such as the elevator, lights, and laundry room. 

They worked with Solar One again to find an expe­ri­enced solar installer. To take advan­tage of economies of scale, Solar One bundled 430 Clinton’s project with another building, and the winning contractor, Accord Power, completed both projects. The project proceeded smoothly.

“430 Clinton fits the bill for exactly what could have gone well, all across the board,” said Amy Doan, who oversaw the instal­la­tion for Accord Power.

The contractor installed ballasted panels, which sit on the roof weighed down by heavy blocks, and don’t need to be drilled in. These panels have a solar coating on both sides, and the roof is painted white, in an approach that allows the panels to capture addi­tional sunlight reflected back by the roof and can help unlock extra tax credits, Doan explained. In the base­ment, an inverter now converts solar energy from DC to AC current so it can flow to the grid. Parra can check each day’s energy produc­tion from an app on his phone. 

The solar panels now produce more than enough energy to power all of the building’s shared ameni­ties. NYCEEC’s analysis suggests that the project will generate nearly 30,000 kilo­watt hours of energy each year, which should save the building around $13,700 in elec­tricity costs annu­ally. Over the project’s life­time, NYCEEC esti­mates the project will save 423 metric tons of CO2 — about the equiv­a­lent of taking 100 gas-powered cars off the road for a year.

The panels directly reduce the amount of fossil fuels the building uses, but the new roof will help, too. The repair includes insu­la­tion upgrades that Parra hopes will lead the building to use less gas for heat. 

“Solar is the thing that every­body under­stands; the thing that I under­stood,” said Parra. ​“I now realize it’s only a small frac­tion of what you need to do about energy. Insulation and heating, all that’s prob­ably more impor­tant actu­ally. It’s just less sexy.” 

The roof itself, Parra said, will help 430 Clinton meet new energy effi­ciency stan­dards under Local Law 97, and help the building avoid a fine in 2027. These stan­dards tighten over time, however. Parra said the new gas boiler will likely trigger a fine in 2030.

If Parra had to do it all over again, he says he would have talked to sustain­ability experts early and often, and invested in a whole-building energy audit up front — advice he now gives to other buildings. 

“Unfortunately, that phone call [to NYC Accelerator] happened half a year too late,” he said.

Unlike the boiler, the roof and solar project was a clear win. The top-floor neighbor who was ready to leave changed his mind. ​“Now he seems happy to stay,” said Parra.

The building had never had roof access, so missing out on a roof garden wasn’t a huge loss. Long term, lower costs to power common spaces will help the building save for other future improvements. 

Ultimately, Adu said, the owners who had wanted to use the roof for other purposes were pleased with the deci­sion. ​“They were all for it. It’s really about creating value for everyone.”

Plus, there are still chances to make further energy improve­ments down the line. With some space on the roof still left over, Parra says that if a future board wants to consider adding extra panels for sub-metering, they can. 

When asked to give advice for other build­ings, Parra paused. ​“Good luck!” he said first. Then: ​“Think global, act local, right? Do some­thing. ”