As many of you know, the vast majority of Gateway Plaza tenants received enormous electric bills this past January. Many of you participated in our online survey, which was designed to help us better understand the magnitude of the problem. Although the electric charges have dropped since January, we have concerns about both the transparency in our billing, and also that the capital improvements implemented at Gateway have done little to mitigate against high bills in the very cold months.
We have reached out to our elected officials, Battery Park City Authority and the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) for assistance in addressing these issues. Among our goals will be to see that the monthly electric bills clearly show the breakdown in charges, including delineation of the portion of the bill that is actually for service or administrative charges.
In addition, we learned from the PSC that tenants are supposed to receive a copy of their rights and protections under the Home Energy Fair Practices Act (HEFPA) from the landlord on an annual basis. This has not occurred, so a representative from the PSC has contacted the landlord and AMPS-ELEMCO (the electricity submetering and billing company), and were then told this notice would be sent out. Note that this has not happened to date.
We appreciate the participation of our residents in keeping us informed of excessive electric bills. We will keep you advised of our progress on these issues.