Rents are not the only thing driving up housing costs for New Yorkers.

The Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums says rising prices for insurance, fuel and maintenance are threatening to push residents out of some of the last bastions of affordable homeownership in New York City: co-ops and condos.

The group is calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani — whose affordability agenda has already delivered a rent freeze for over 1 million rent-regulated apartments — to help alleviate the financial strain on co-op and condo owners by consolidating regulations and capping penalties for buildings that are making progress toward environmental requirements but won’t make the deadline.

The organization studied annual costs across more than 1,200 co-ops and condos and found insurance rates more than doubled while fuel, maintenance and property taxes all increased by at least 20% between 2019 and 2024.

"Absent government action, many co-op and condo homeowners will be hardpressed to pay their carrying charges, undermining the financial viability of their co-ops and condos and accelerating the erosion of affordable homeownership,” the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums, or CNYC, wrote in its report.

More than 729,000 households live in co-ops and condos across the five boroughs, the report adds. A 2024 analysis from the city comptroller’s office found that co-ops and condos account for roughly 99% of home sales of $400,000 or less in New York City.

A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Many residents are dealing with rapidly rising expenses. Co-op boards in the city and state’s Mitchell Lama program have jacked up their monthly maintenance costs to meet the rising expenses, and to make up for past decisions to keep charges flat. The housing program places income caps on co-op units priced for middle class owners and limits how much they can resell them for.

The city’s patchwork of more than 100 building regulations and local laws, including the emissions reduction measure known as Local Law 97, add to the burden they are already facing, CNYC Membership Director Rebecca Poole said. The landmark 2019 measure mandates that buildings meet strict emissions caps or pay escalating fines.

Her group has urged City Hall to create a “one-stop shop” itemizing the requirements for each condo and coop, and to study whether overlapping laws are leading to duplicative costs — similar to how the city has recently addressed obligations for small businesses.

“The idea would be to streamline compliance to make it easier for board members, homeowners, everybody to just see what a specific building needs to do in order to make sure that they don't miss anything,” Poole said.  ”We found that co-ops and condos want to comply with city legislation. It's beneficial to the building. But knowing what is required is sometimes more difficult.”

The report also details ways to make Local Law 97 requirements less onerous for co-op and condo residents. The measure has faced furious opposition from many co-op and condo associations that say the necessary work to meet the goal is too expensive. CNYC President Derek Jones said his group supports the goals of Local Law 97 but recommends the city allow boards to use penalty money to pay for actual electrification and sustainability upgrades.

The group also recommends capping future penalties at 2034 levels, rather than increasing them through 2050.

“ We want to have clean, safe environments to live in,” Jones said. “But I don't think that the city is considering the cost of achieving some of the goals that they're asking us to do.”

The mayor’s recently released housing plan cites some strategies to reduce costs for condo and co-op owners, including streamlining facade inspection requirements. The plan also references a state tax break program called J-51 that is available to coops with income-restricted units and can be used to offset Local Law 97-related work.