Environmental & Compliance
Environmental Commitment
For many years Summit has achieved remarkable outcomes on the critical matters of environmental and sustainability transformations. Through our rehabilitation and capital improvement work alone, we have invested thousands of hours on resourceful and innovative solutions, including participating in public-private partnerships and navigating access to government subsidies. In addition to enhancing the standard of living and sense of community for our clients, creating more ecological and sustainable neighborhoods is deeply rooted in our business strategy.
We work hard to advance our ESG goals by relying on direct and indirect methodologies. These strategies include securing grants and subsidies for environmental improvements as well as partnering with utilities, city and state commissions and regulators to secure rebates and other cost reductions on behalf of our clients.
Remarkably over the last 5 years, Summit has secured $20 million for energy saving incentives at no cost to our client owners. We make this possible with the breadth of our experience and the strength of the network behind us. Summit is also active in the reduction of carbon footprint arena. As a member of the New York City Mayor’s task force, we are committed to exceed the Mayor’s Carbon Challenge. We will continue to both introduce and execute projects that facilitate reductions in energy use and emissions.
Compliance Commitment
With regard to Compliance, taking on these initiatives and in particular in the affordable housing arena, requires us to have the infrastructure necessary to comply with city, state and federal regulations. Most notably, our systems have been implemented to comply with lender guidelines and the United States Department of Housing & Urban Development (“HUD”), New York State Homes and Community Renewal (“HCR”) and New York City Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”) regulations. As an added layer of compliance, we also maintain strategic alliances with compliance professionals in connection with the management of LITHC properties.
Summit brings the same level of compliance experience to market rate and luxury buildings. We continually monitor city and state regulations to make sure our properties are in compliance and the necessary documentation is submitted in a timely matter.
In the critical area of governance, each year, independent auditing firms are engaged to conduct full audits of our client developments, in accordance with GAAP. Over the course of 30 years these opinions have been unqualified without exception.
