Getting under the hood with Derek K. Jones

When Derek K. Jones decides to do some­thing, he goes all in. Take, for example, his deci­sion to move to Sherman Terrace Co-op: He wasn’t just looking for a home, but for an active commu­nity, a place that was progres­sively trying to main­tain and update its property.

“I imme­di­ately wanted to get involved and see what was under the hood, in terms of how the board worked and what they were doing for the building,” Jones said. Sherman Terrace already had some upgrade projects underway, but Jones wanted to add his support, and ​“mani­fest the life that [he] wanted at this building.”

In 2019, Jones more than made good on his inten­tion to get involved in the board — he became its pres­i­dent. When the board decided to under­take its suite of energy effi­ciency improve­ment projects, once again Jones went the extra mile. ​“I was a novice at being on a board,” Jones said. ​“I didn’t know what to do.” So the first thing he did was attend the CooperatorEvents New York Expo and ask copious amounts of ques­tions. ​“Anything that I didn’t know, I marked it as a booth that I wanted to stop by,” Jones said. ​“So I just started going up and down every single row at this event.”

He recalls that there must have been at least 100 vendors at the event, offering services around combined heat and power systems, solar, building main­te­nance services, and more. When he approached the repre­sen­ta­tives from a solar company, what sealed the deal was the presenter saying, ​“We can install solar, and you will start to see a return on invest­ment within three to five years.”

Jones knew this would be a convincing argu­ment for his share­holders, who were skep­tical of upgrades at first. He reminded them that their co-ops were not rentals, but prop­er­ties they could sell, and hope­fully make a profit on. ​“A lot of the older people were a little bit hesi­tant, but we looked at return on invest­ment and the instal­la­tion, knowing that we had to reduce our green­house gas and reduce our energy use,” Jones said.

The Local Law 97 dead­line for Sherman Terrace to cut emis­sions by 40% is still a few years off, but Jones was moti­vated to be ahead of the curve before the 2030 dead­line. ​“I wanted there to be success right away, and I wanted to see a return right away,” Jones said.

It takes proac­tivity and people skills to get things done ahead of schedule. Thankfully, Jones has both, said Billy Ray, his room­mate. ​“He’s got to get it done,” Ray said. ​“He does not save emails. It’s just clean, straight lines with him.” Jones is also adept at navi­gating the conflicts that can arise as a result of drastic changes in people’s living spaces, Ray added. ​“He is so patient with people even when they’re screaming at him,” Ray said. ​“He will allow it, and then he will calmly respond back and say, ​‘Okay, I’m sorry you feel that way.’”

Now, after going deep on his own building’s reno­va­tion, Jones is not greedy with his find­ings and resources — he’s eager to share the wealth of infor­ma­tion. Jones serves on the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums (CNYC), which keeps co-ops and condo­miniums updated on the latest regu­la­tions and resources for managing their build­ings. It is through the network of CNYC that he helped Maryam Ansoralli, another co-op’s board member, find a prop­erty manager.

“I see a lot of solar panels on roofs in my neigh­bor­hood,” Jones said. ​“I don’t know if [Sherman Terrace] was the moti­va­tion for them doing it. We were one of the first in our neigh­bor­hood, so hope­fully that was some­thing that they saw and took on themselves.”