How Smart Planning Prevents Building Panic

Planning and executing building projects is a board’s key task, which sounds much simpler than it actually is. Complicating the task is timing, financing and communicating to building residents. Habitat’s Emily Myers speaks with Ira Meister, President of Matthew Adam Properties; Anton Lekic, Co-Founder of Murray Hill Management; and Jamie Sikorski, Senior Vice President at AKAM, to understand how this plays out in the real world and what works and what doesn't.

How To Run Your Building: For Co-ops and Condos

Transcript

Emily Myers (1:10.176)
Welcome to Habitat's Management Series. I'm Emily Myers, and this is one of several round table conversations with the executives of leading New York City property management firms. The topic for this discussion is strategic initiatives that drive results. And I'm delighted to be joined by Ira Meister, founder and president at Matthew Adam Properties, Anton Lekic, co-founder of Murray Hill Management, and Jamie Sikorski.
Senior Vice President at ACHEM. Thank you all so much for being here.

Jaime Sikorski (1:41.514)
Thank you.

Ira Meister (1:41.845)
Your pleasure.

Tony Lekic (1:42.316)
Thank you very much.

Emily Myers (1:44.884)
So when we consider what it takes to manage a property and the initiatives that can add value, compliance and financial planning come to mind. And our conversation is going to touch on these issues. And we'll also discuss some specific examples of co-ops and condos, because I think the minutiae can often help illustrate the broader picture. But first, Jamie, what are the initiatives that drive results for the buildings in ACAM's portfolio?

Jaime Sikorski (2:11.540)
So, you know, I think that, you know, the key to all of this comes down to planning, communication, um and between those two items, they cover a plethora of things, of course, but really getting ahead of it, goal setting at the top of the discussion, and then having regular check-ins to see, to both, you know, make sure we're on the right path and make adjustments as needed, as well as update any information as you get it.

Emily Myers (2:42.240)
So how do you ensure boards stay focused on strategic goals?

Jaime Sikorski (2:46.868)
So I think that the key is, is again, at the beginning of any kind of project or goal is to have an open discussion, taking very precise notes on those discussions and having overall arching goals of what, whether it's financial or quality of life or whatever it may be to always have a target to go towards. um And then to utilize both weekly communications as well as board meetings to provide updates.

Ira Meister (3:5.963)
Hmm.

Jaime Sikorski (3:15.962)
I think it's important to have a balance between written communications as well as open discussions because one is more tangible um and you can always reference back to it, but the other also can open up the discussion and you get more nuanced information or questions where you can really drive in and focus in on those results to make sure we're on track.

Emily Myers (3:39.560)
Interesting. Anton, what's the priority for you at Murray Hill Management as you think about generating results for the buildings in your portfolio and also, I suppose, your management company?

Tony Lekic (3:50.792)
So uh Jamie was uh exactly to the point and she was right about it. Communication, communication, communication, the most important part. ah Yes, the boards are decision makers and therefore they really have to be ah properly uh informed about whatever is a task that is actually in
front of us sharing that same communication with the shareholders is very important because as a cooperative communities or condo communities, the common investigations, we have to all work together and have them on the same page as their board of manager or directors. yes, communication is the most important and actually
uh maintaining that healthy cooperative community is the most important.

Emily Myers (4:59.252)
Yes, and I guess as I suppose the compliance landscape expands, Ira, uh what thoughts do you have on sort of, I know that you've watched with interest, New York's shift towards electrification and away from fossil fuels. How does the compliance piece of the puzzle play into your sort of strategic initiatives?

Ira Meister (5:24.735)
It's kind of interesting. I got involved with these compliance and efficiency, energy efficiency, sustainability, and all the fun stuff that goes with 30 years ago. So what we tried to bring to our clients is communications, as Jamie said, and a lot of transparency. If you're going to meet with the board, you go with a plan.
you don't go, I heard XYZ building did this, or maybe you want to do that. You come with a game plan to the board, and here's our suggestions, here's our ideas, here's the 800 new rules and regulations the city put out there we have to now comply with. Here's the deadlines, give you a good idea what it's going to cost you, what the payback is. So there's a lot of...
moving parts and lot of, and they encourage the boys to be very transparent with the union owners and the shareholders because it's inevitable that a lot of these projects will end up oh costing either through using reserves or using assessments. So we try to get it out there so everybody knows what's going on.

Emily Myers (6:28.832)
course, financing these types of projects is one of the most challenging parts of the process. Do you have strategies for getting buildings on a solid financial footing?

Ira Meister (6:38.963)
Yes, well first you have to know what the numbers are going to be. That's the first thing. What grants are available through Con Ed, through NYSERDA, through any other projects?
through, there are sometimes, even manufacturers right now are scrambling and they're offering different incentive programs to buildings. So you really need to get your numbers together, what the incentives are, what it's gonna cost. Then we look at the budget, what you have, what you don't have, and how do we get from point A to point B so we can accomplish this. I think a lot of it also is presenting what the savings is gonna be. People seem to accept savings more than...
efficiency or more than what it's actually going to do for the environment or for their health or for themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of it's dollar driven, but we try to get them to explain it both ways. What's dollar driven, what's health driven, what's good for the environment, what's good for the people in the building. There's a tremendous amount of moving parts and we have to show them, here's what the financing is available. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to come up with.

Emily Myers (7:45.919)
Yeah, I mean, as you point out, Ira, there's a lot of research and information that needs to go in, in order for the boards to make decisions. Jamie, how do you help boards be the decision makers rather than, you know, get bogged down in the research?

Ira Meister (7:52.031)
What?

Jaime Sikorski (8:3.432)
Yeah, so I think, you know, Ira said it, you come with a plan for the board to consider and there is a lot of research that goes in, you know, that's involved in that. You know, it comes down to not only what the project will entail or the compliance, I know, whatever it may be, but what other buildings are doing, um you know, what other companies are doing, what other industries are doing, because it's not just doing the same old thing again, it's finding new and interesting ways.
You know, there's some things where there's the best course of action will make a recommendation. Other times you're going to have, you know, the ideal solution, the necessary solution, and then sometimes the, you know, this is what you have to do. And so the board can make these decisions by balancing, you know, again, going back to those overall arching goals with the, what the building has from a financial standpoint and from a timing standpoint.
and they're able to make those decisions with all of the information, keeping the priorities on what their overall arching goals are.

Emily Myers (9:10.454)
um Anton, can you share a story in which you've worked with a building to ready them for local law 97 compliance and perhaps what you've learned from the experience?

Tony Lekic (9:20.325)
local on 87 really put the stringent limits on the carbon footprint. And we are all moving towards trying to prevent those penalties. In any event, the best bet is really, like Ira said, electrification, period, the end. That's the ultimate goal.

Tony Lekic (9:50.692)
Initially, I started, like I said, 20 years ago with the federal programs, but the organization was a really good opening for all of us to actually bring our efficiencies up and the waste of energy down. So I do heavily work with the organization systems. And usually that will be a first step because
First, you really take care of the envelope of the building and make sure that you're not leaking that new windows, roof insulation, uh basement, heating improvements and all this. So the efficiency is up. After that, I usually go to multifamily energy efficiency and through them, I get my grants or whatever is possible.
to actually fortify the financial situation of the property. In other words, check of $100,000 or whatever it is from NYSERDA really helps a lot to improve the reserve fund, which you definitely need once you want to go to climate friendly, if that's the next step.
A climate I found that in my uh Queens properties at least, uh it's very specific to the communities. You realize that climate friendly compound actually has to qualify you based on some social situations in the neighborhood. Not everybody does qualify. There are three different ways of qualifying and you have to research.
and find out where does your building fall. And then the federal regulation, maybe city or uh so find why could you qualify this first step. Secondly, keep the lines of communication open. So I did a building in, plus in a real landmark building. uh We did WAP, we got.

Tony Lekic (12:14.089)
new windows, got roof insulation, we got brand new boilers and hot water heaters. And that building gained about a million dollars of investment from the government in all those different projects. In addition to that, we got over $300,000 in the reward. That's how I gave the explanation to the boards from the efficiency.
oh Now, at that point, we went to Climate Friendly, the building with Qualify. However, considering that we got a brand new boilers and brand new hot water heaters, the Southern Climate Friendly had to drop us because the ah new boiler and hot water heaters were so efficient that we couldn't do the electrification.
start the electrification last year.

Emily Myers (13:14.932)
Okay, so an important part of the eligibility is how efficient your equipment is. And if it's good equipment that is working efficiently, moving it to electric is gonna be, or getting the funds to electrify is gonna be more challenging. I think what you're drawing attention to as well, of course, is the research about eligibility for... uh
these financing programs and rebates is a really important part of the process.

Tony Lekic (13:48.425)
but that's how I positioned myself for the next property. So when I did the visualization, I minimized the improvement on the heating system and that water system. So I did qualify and right now we are in process of doing electrification in that particular co-op, which is also in Flushing.
We did qualify uh through the Con Edison, through the uh research and development uh for climate friendly fund and they are in the process, like Ira said, manufacturing and type of the units that go in uh are really uh challenging because every building is different, obviously, and every
individual setup is different. But yes, we did locate a good quality units. And very, very important fact is that you have to keep the representatives from NYSERDA uh in contact constantly. have bi-weekly meetings with the board and with the NYSERDA representatives.

Emily Myers (15:19.314)
Okay, interesting. and I'll just point out that obviously the Climate Friendly Homes Fund is the fund administered by the Community Preservation Corporation and it provides financing for existing five to 150 unit buildings in the state with a focus on replacing older and less efficient energy efficient systems with all electric ah really to, and then there's the WAP you mentioned, which is the Weatherization Assistance Program.

Ira Meister (15:39.019)
Thank

Emily Myers (15:46.270)
which helps income eligible homeowners with energy conservation measures to bring down the cost of heating and cooling. Ira, are you working with a specific building right now to prepare them for the future when it comes to energy efficiency and local law 97 compliance? And can you share some of the details?

Ira Meister (15:59.851)
Mm-hmm.
Sure, we're already on the project. We have two projects in progress right now. One is a 41 unit.
luxury loft condominium unit and the second in a 325 unit Co-op unit another larger building. We've already started on the smaller building and going electrification The building was it's a hundred year old building. It was we have the 1984 and Has done progress over the over the past several years right now. We're starting an electrification. We saw it with the boilers We've started with looking at heat pumps and different sources for hot water
It's kind of funny because we've been very, very careful. A lot of new companies have jumped into the fray, lot of new selling heat pumps and all this fun stuff. I tell everybody, try to go with some proven entity. Back 30 plus years ago, I unfortunately inherited a building through a bank. There was a condominium that did not work out well. had the first heat pumps installed in New York. Heat pumps are a great project. The only problem was when they were tested in New York and the cold weather that we used to have here, just didn't.
one of the apartments. So we ended up having to install electric coils in the ductwork of all these units. And eventually that company down in Texas, where everybody was named Bob, went out of business. So then we've been looking at different, you know, there are realistic players there. You know, there are American standard, there are trained, there are people carry real companies out there that have jumped into this with proven technology. So one project on the 41 unit project.

Ira Meister (17:35.971)
We are going with with no name with with good equipment people in the building are happy about it They already have thermal paint windows, but right now we're gonna opt for a triple pane window ah So a lot of different things are going to happen there and they've already decided that they get they're getting some outside money, but not a lot because it's a uh luxury buildings with their game for Assessment and where so we've gaged out the assessment for them over the next three years
and some of the manufacturers and installs we're working with have uh self-financed for them. So it really made it a lot easier to accept. On the larger building, they had an absorption heat air conditioning unit, which basically used city steam to produce air. So we removed that and we installed what they call microchillers in that building. And by installing these microchillers that were on electric, they brought down their energy consumption annually, about half a million dollars.

Emily Myers (18:22.997)
Mm-hmm.

Ira Meister (18:35.787)
So in two years, they've paid for their entire system. so right now, they're reaping the benefits of the system. In the apartments, we'll be doing similar changes to the units that they have there. They units, cooler units, cooler units in the apartments. We're going to be mapping them out to change them to electrify them. So it'll be very, very energy efficient building. There's a lot of projects going on right now, and it's very exciting time.

Emily Myers (19:4.118)
Gosh, interesting. I mean, presumably buildings might even come to you because they have a preference for energy efficiency with your background in terms of this. But there are obviously boards that are resistant to these measures. What's your approach with these types of buildings where they perhaps just can't get the funding in place or they can't build the cohesion with the board to make the change they need to?

Ira Meister (19:15.839)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Lekic (19:28.652)
you

Ira Meister (19:30.303)
Mm-hmm.
show them the numbers, show them what it's going to cost them if they don't comply. It all boils down to the numbers. Many of the boards don't look beyond numbers. They don't look at what they're saving for the environment. And I'm one of these environmental loving people. they don't look at that. It all comes down to dollars and cents. You have to prove it. Here's what it's going to be. Here's what you're going to save in energy. Here's what it's going to cost you in fines in the future. Why pay fines when you can invest that into your infrastructure?

Emily Myers (20:3.638)
Yeah. Jamie, I mean, we hear obviously a lot about emissions, Local Law 97, the deadline fast approaching to report. but of course, there's a massive compliance landscape and capital planning is going to vary for each building. But funding big projects to stay ahead of repairs and meet compliance deadlines is key. Is there a co-op or condo in your portfolio that illustrates this?

Jaime Sikorski (20:33.034)
Yeah, I actually, you know, I have the example. I have a building downtown. It's about 400 units, 42 stories, you know, in addition to, you know, all of the local 97 projects that they they've known are on the horizon and and approaching and they're not, you know, looking at any potential fines for for quite a long time. So they've got a little bit of room. And so, you know, probably about eight or nine years ago, they actually started thinking about the fact that
You know, we're going to have all these projects. And so we worked with them and created a capital plan and a financial capital plan, you know, over the next five, 10, 15 years and continue to update it. You know, the, the big project that they were looking to map out is an elevator mod. um They've got three sets of elevators, um one going to high rise, one going to mid rise, and then one going to basement levels.
which houses a host of amenities. And so we were able to map it out again at the very beginning using very rough numbers and then narrowing in. The strategic approach also was not to do all of the elevators at once, which everyone knows elevator projects are known for going sideways. And so they started with the high rise oh as with any project. The key is to map it out clearly.

Ira Meister (21:36.203)
Thank

Jaime Sikorski (22:0.126)
you know, both from a financial standpoint and the steps of the project, but also to have a communication plan um with the residents. Because if you map it out ahead of time to say we're going to communicate every six weeks and then put that on a calendar, it's very easy to lose track of those kinds of things and forget the impact that it has to residents. So we put all of that in place and with each capital project, we allocated how frequent should we be providing updates.

Ira Meister (22:1.835)
Thank

Jaime Sikorski (22:29.834)
um As I said, they started with the high rise, um went through all of the, you know, getting the recommendations from professionals, getting the peer recommendations from other buildings, both residential and commercial, bidding the project out, going through the, and leveling the bids, all of that stuff. The project went ahead. It was very successful. But as with anything, you identified that there's areas that, that we could have done better on, whether it's because of circumstance or
new information or just the reality of the circumstances. In this case, they actually decided to postpone the mid-rise until all of those could be worked out, um made some tweaks in it, um and then moved ahead with the mid-rise project. they're in the process now of that. And it is certainly even more successful. And I think that the unit owners
definitely appreciate that as well. know, in, again, you've got to know your audience in a luxury building, communication, proactiveness, getting feedback, not only on how you're doing on budget, on time, but also on the impact of quality life to residents. That's really important to get that data and then evaluate that data and weigh, you know, sometimes it's worth it to spend a little bit more to impact residents less.

Tony Lekic (23:41.727)
Thank uh

Jaime Sikorski (23:56.208)
or to shorten the length of the project. So to always be updating that, going back to the original timeline of the strategic planning of these projects, when we postponed the mid-rise elevator project, that kind of left a hole to be able to do a smaller capital project and reallocating that. And the key is to always be updating that, refining it, revising it.

Ira Meister (23:58.955)
you

Jaime Sikorski (24:24.828)
as needed to make sure that you're always not only working on what you're doing right now, but looking ahead and making adjustments as you need to.

Emily Myers (24:35.082)
Gosh, interesting. mean, I was gonna ask really, perhaps Ira, you know, perhaps you can, hang on, let me think about it. Sorry, my question.

Ira Meister (24:42.005)
Yes.

Emily Myers (24:51.443)
Um

Emily Myers (24:57.490)
second. um

Emily Myers (25:5.888)
Sorry.

Emily Myers (25:14.364)
Jamie, yeah, you're drawing the point that, you know, when we talk about buildings, we're talking about residents. And clearly these buildings, know, buildings are full of people and navigating the sort of human journey is as important, equally important as the, you know, the return on investment in the infrastructure. Tony, Tony, do you have thoughts in terms of sort of uh cohesion for the,
for the residents and making sure that uh everyone's happy with uh the strategic plans.

Tony Lekic (25:51.294)
uh In actuality, Jamie got it right and the communication is a key. uh In addition to that, the building staff and the managers are playing crucial role. The simple logistics of it and updating people on the regular basis uh about the progress of the project is very, very important.
Sometimes the project itself, oh everything is going great. However, you have a government portion of the re-inspections. It happened to us that you are done with the elevator completely, but DOB doesn't have enough inspectors to come and actually give you that in-use permit. So everything has to be...

Ira Meister (26:40.523)
Thank

Tony Lekic (26:50.351)
related to the uh shareholders, owners and residents. So they know where the hold up is. It's not that we are not uh paying attention to the project. Of course, elevator projects do go sideways and Jamie is right.

Emily Myers (27:14.486)
um Ira, you pointed out that you've been in the uh energy space for 30 years and in the management space for 30 years as well. But obviously you've seen massive changes. Can we just sort of pivot to where you see us being in 15, 20 years and how boards prepare for that? We've got a lot of uncertainty and change ahead.

Ira Meister (27:41.984)
Yes. oh

Emily Myers (27:42.131)
How are boards expected to prepare for that?

Ira Meister (27:45.451)
uh What we try to do and I like to do is tell it based on my past experiences.
Try to schedule, give them an idea of what's coming up, what's coming down. know, nobody ever expected electrification 15 years ago. Everybody was burning number six oil in the old days, then they went to four, then to two. So we try to give them better ideas of what to expect going forward. There are a lot of new plans that the city, state, and federal government had been working on under the new administration that's all out the window. We're going to go back to burning number six oil. Just a joke. But it is a...

Emily Myers (28:19.626)
haha

Ira Meister (28:22.315)
an interesting future, a very exciting future. But when I tell all our boards that anytime you're doing an extended five-year plan, any kind of plan, that any plan is a living document. It's not written in stone. It will change. Last year we were working on a project where we were doing an electrification project and the price of the unit is quadruple. Because they couldn't get the... um
electronics they needed, was a lot of problems with uh SIM cards, other cards, they just couldn't get the stuff they needed. And the prices they were getting at a premium. So we're trying to see, you know, going forward where we can get the most bang for the buck, trying to do projects now while we can get an idea what the actual cost is going to be. There is, you know, there isn't the crystal ball. I mean, we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, but we tried to.
Let them know like here's what I see or we see what the future is going to be. know, years ago, nobody expected a thermal pain window. Nobody expected any of these things, but we see it now. And it's funny. I had run into a student of mine back when I was teaching NYU and he said, Oh, I know you, Mr. Meister. You're the godfather of green. I said, Oh my God, at least I'm not the godfather of mafia. Jeez, thank you. But,

Tony Lekic (29:35.865)
Thank
out.

Emily Myers (29:39.071)
You

Ira Meister (29:39.997)
It's cute and that one of the things that we spoke about years ago are now coming to fruition now and I enjoy it.

Emily Myers (29:47.336)
Interesting. Yeah. I mean, you touched on tariffs, inflation. Yeah, Tony, what were you on to check?

Tony Lekic (29:48.867)
Good night.

Ira Meister (29:50.219)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Lekic (29:52.057)
Can I just piggyback on that? I raise right, as we are doing the electrification, every step is really important. Right now, every building that we are actually doing the electrification, have to, hopefully not, but 90 % of the cases, you have to upgrade your electrical panels, electricity supply, even...
maybe bring more power from the street. Now, when you are doing that, keep in mind that electrical stoves are coming. If you are bringing a new electrical panel to the apartment, make sure that they will have that room in order to be amped with that electrical stove that is coming 2035 or whatever. each
slowly rolling in. In addition to that, the EV chargers that everybody is doing now because of the local law 55, everybody thinks, oh, we have plenty of time. We really don't. At this point, when you're upgrading your electrical systems, you should make sure that you have enough power for the EV chargers also.
because minimum 20 % have to be provided. And then five years later, they're jumping to 40%. So all the parking spaces. We are doing EVs in several buildings at the same time. Three of them are already done. And the garages are being upgraded with those charges. So when you're planning on updating electric,

Emily Myers (31:31.999)
Interesting.

Tony Lekic (31:49.537)
do it in one step and work closely with Con Edison and your engineers to actually plan for enough electricity, not only for heat pumps, but also for potentially individual hot water heaters, instance hot water heaters that are located inside the apartment. Sorry.

Emily Myers (32:12.574)
Yeah, no, interesting. When you think about electrical capacity and there are ways in which you can sort of do a partial electrification and then build on that. Jamie, do you have thoughts on that?

Ira Meister (32:17.119)
Thank

Jaime Sikorski (32:22.952)
Yeah, I actually wanted to touch on something that Ira said about the crystal ball. I think that where the strategy comes in is, and he gave the example of the very first heat pumps from a company that didn't work out. Our role is to try to show as much as we can on what's coming down the road. It's not necessarily to do things the fastest. It's to do things balancing the timing.
with a measured decision because we've all seen, that happened with COGEN where a lot of buildings jumped on a little prematurely and spent real resources trying to be the first and everything or not even with that intention, but just to be proactive and ultimately didn't have the benefits or the rewards that they were anticipating. So I think it's about utilizing the information.
that comes not only from your management team, but from your professionals, your engineers, all of those things. And to really strategize about what it is, it's also about being very engaged with the local authorities. Ira mentioned politics, and I'm not gonna touch on that. But speaking with the various authorities throughout the government, from DOB and DOT to your community boards.

Ira Meister (33:36.078)
Okay.

Jaime Sikorski (33:46.858)
oh because there's a lot of resources out there and being engaged with all those resources can get you a little more clarity. You know, we're looking at the facade, you know, requirements that are changing. Now, there is definitely going to be benefits to that, but there's also likely going to be some pretty heavy lifts that come along with it. oh You know, and as we know, you know, a law passes, but then spends the next, you know, five years being clarified. And so,
the more information that, know, and it's our responsibility to get that information and to work with the professionals to be able to present it. Going back to, you know, Emily, you're one of your initial questions is how do we set up a board to be decision makers as opposed to researchers and everything like that. And so it's combining all of these things to try to give them, you know, maybe not a crystal ball, but it's somewhat a hazy ball that they would be able to look through um and then coach them through it.

Emily Myers (34:45.086)
Interesting, yeah. And of course, yeah, you mentioned cogen, which is where gas is used to generate electricity. And of course, you know, many buildings now finding that that isn't to their advantage. Ira, do you have thoughts on that?

Ira Meister (34:56.619)
Yeah, one thing also you have to realize that our beloved Con Edison really doesn't have the infrastructure in place to support all this.
You know, I just worked on an electrification project and they said, well, it'll be eight to 10 months before we can get you the electric you need. I said, does it exist under this block? says, no, we'd probably bring it over from five blocks away. And the same thing we went through with gas, same thing, just have enough gas to go around or the infrastructure in place. I think we're going to have that's going to be one of our biggest complication electrification is the utilities. know, Con Ed wants to be the pipeline, but not the supplier, which is grand.
But the pipeline has to be top line. And they're trying to do it and just right now they're not at it. They're really trying. And one of the things I also noticed in the electrication project that I worked on.

Ira Meister (35:56.075)
They're working outside my office, think. That's what it is. Okay, so we were in a project on U-77th Street, electrification project, and Connors who came back to us, they wanted to charge the client $180,000 for the connection. And then I had to fight my way up the chain there in order to get them to eat it. I said, I'm going explain, you're going to make this back in two years. Why am I paying this money now?
So that's one thing that we have to be aware of, that yes, they're going to try to charge for a lot of these things, even though they're not supposed to charge for it. And that we have to make sure when you do go through a project, the engineer, the people you're working with, can confirm with ConEd before you spin your wheels right away that the infrastructure is in place to support it.

Emily Myers (36:44.808)
Yeah. Yeah. And of course, Jamie pointed out community resources and Tony, you know, I know that your portfolio is very much in Queens, if I'm not mistaken, you know, and you're able to tap into, you know, some of the resources that are offered in Queens.

Ira Meister (37:1.515)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Lekic (37:1.766)
Yes, ah working closely with the local politicians, ah I'm fortunate that our local government, Senator John Lew and uh community board leaders are really cooperative. I was uh able to actually make appointment and have several
of this kind of roundtable discussions with the DOB and HPD uh together in their offices. So it kind of became official. we had our board members attend that. So we had a nice powwow. And in all honesty, they did help our co-ops.
to actually deal with some of the old Assad issue violations and the reduction in the draconian penalties to the co-ops and condoms that really had not, they did nothing wrong except fall behind for one reason or the other. So yes, they are really a big help. In addition to that, the NYSERDA, uh

Ira Meister (38:20.372)
Ahem.

Tony Lekic (38:28.835)
engineering firms that they engage are really able to guide you tremendously.

Emily Myers (38:36.822)
um So, you we talked a little about what we can predict for the future. And I know that COVID is very much in the rear view mirror, but I'm curious, Jamie, people, um since COVID, people are obviously spending more time in their apartments. Are there issues that have come up related to this that might be a distraction for boards to stay on their long-term goals? Or is it encouraging people to commit to the long-term goals um as a result?

Ira Meister (39:2.443)
you

Jaime Sikorski (39:6.730)
You know, I think the biggest difference that I've seen, you know, and I think part of it is, is people are working from home more. think during COVID also, you know, everyone was, was stationary. And so you started identifying more and more things. And I've noticed that since, you know, the pandemic, you know, people are a lot more communicative. That can certainly be a good thing. And it generally is. But it.
At the same time, there tends to be the squeaky wheel situation where you have people that are starting to monopolize a board's attention um over things that are not necessarily as impactful as potentially other things or quieter wheels. And so with that heightened communication, there's also an expectation of an urgency in response. And so where I think pre-pandemic,
if someone had a concern and something is as I don't want to say simple, but benign as a noise from a neighbor. Post pandemic that has escalated where it's uh an urgency that can sometimes distract. Again, I think that's the key to setting those overall arching goals and to stay on track at meetings and communications to make sure that we're focusing on the right things, but never forgetting anyone.

Ira Meister (40:16.383)
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Sikorski (40:31.218)
So again, those people who are communicating a lot and having a lot of the frustrations, know, noise is a great example of something that has been escalating. When people work from home, the expectation is to have that still same quiet environment and all of those things. But at the same time, the people next door are the same people who are working from home that may be a pianist. And we've seen that situation where there's that juxtaposition.

Ira Meister (40:41.876)
Mm-hmm.

Ira Meister (40:53.927)
you

Jaime Sikorski (41:0.414)
So I think getting ahead of it in proactively communicating, in bringing people together where you can, and then also setting guidelines on how much time we wanna spend on each thing to make sure that we address every item. We don't wanna just bury it or overlook it, but also not lose focus of something that could be equally important in the realm of the discussions.

Emily Myers (41:27.230)
It looks like Tony and Ira, you would support those thoughts. um Just an opportunity to get to give your final thoughts. Ira?

Ira Meister (41:31.604)
Uh-huh.

Ira Meister (41:37.343)
Final thoughts. Basically, one, the boards, always recommend transparency. That's the key. You're not going to please everybody. It happens. That's life. mean, we try our best. um We're basically, you know, we're a conduit. So we're the guy sitting in the middle. And unfortunately, everything's always our fault. But that's the nature of our business. It's a service business. um I tell everybody just, you know, be transparent, listen to what everybody has to say.
you know, and then work with the board and help them make the right decisions. And that's what we're all about.

Emily Myers (42:11.392)
Tony, you'd agree.

Tony Lekic (42:13.267)
I definitely agree that the research presentation and working within the board with the people that actually get it. So in other words, uh make a time to kind of form a committee for a specific issue. Like Jamie said, is a noise issue. There are board members that are more inclined.

Ira Meister (42:22.315)
Thanks.

Tony Lekic (42:41.526)
to deal with that portion of the quality of life. However, there are other board members that will understand better the energy project or financial situation of it. So before the board meeting, you should really reach out to those board members and prepare yourself and them so they could actually uh explain maybe in a more familiar way to them.
So their board could understand each other. And if you're delegating those kinds of committees, then you are making it much faster and easier for everybody to understand and have some kind of consensus.

Emily Myers (43:31.208)
Interesting. Well, listen, thank you so much guys for this discussion

Tony Lekic (43:36.533)
Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Jaime Sikorski (43:36.628)
Thank you.

Ira Meister (43:37.461)
Thank you so much for having us.

Emily Myers (43:39.368)
It sounds like basically from either long-term planning, compliance, communication, transparency, ah those are the strategies basically for driving results in the cities, co-ops and condos. I really appreciate your time and perspective. And thanks again for joining Habitat's management series. Stay tuned for more insights from Habitat on the topic of co-op and condo property management.