Central heating & adding square footage by enclosing a porch

Hey everyone!
I have a question for you all: in my apartment building, I am almost certain that at least 51% of the owners have closed off their balconies to create extra rooms over the last 30 years without any permits whatsoever. By doing this, they’ve essentially increased their living space—and the heating costs associated with it—by about 10%. It is pretty easy to calculate that I have been paying significantly more than my fair share of the building's heating bill for years now; those of us who didn't expand our units are basically subsidizing their extra square footage!
Our local representatives haven't shown any interest in fixing this because some of them actually converted their own balconies into rooms. The last update I heard was from the utility company, stating that the homeowners association has to pay for a new property survey and submit the updated data before they can start billing based on the new square footage.
I was wondering if anyone here has dealt with something similar—what did you end up doing?
And don't even get me started on how this high-rise looks... it's an absolute eyesore. Beyond that, parts of the facade (the railings, the shutters, etc.) are one color, but the crews painting and replacing windows aren't sticking to the original palette anymore, making the whole building look like a Benetton advertisement. Honestly, I don't think that's even legal. If you own a single-family house, sure, paint it however you want; you could draw a bear or a rabbit on the side or roll out some DuPont paint for all I care. But this is a massive high-rise with 140 apartments designed by an architect, and there are actual copyright and aesthetic standards regarding the exterior. We don't have private yards here; everything is visible from the street. Most of these units are owned by investors, but shouldn't the residents be required—under some kind of law (I know I'd have to dig through a mountain of regulations, so I'm asking you first to save myself the trouble)—to get 51% or even 100% approval from the owners before changing the building's exterior?
On top of that, people are tearing down walls left and right, and it makes me wonder if anyone actually knows which walls are load-bearing and which are just partitions. Goodness knows how they are doing it since nobody seems to have oversight—private property is treated like a sacred cow, isn't it?—and I worry about the structural integrity of the entire building.
It's terrible; if you ever feel the urge to stare at pure tastelessness and chaos, just head south toward the Youth Bridge and look right toward Spud and Brooklyn, or check out the high-rises in Trenton... as my friend would say, it's just plain gross!
Is anyone else dealing with this?

Look, here’s the deal. It was actually up to the residents to report the increased square footage to the utility company. They were supposed to hire a licensed engineer to draft an official installation project and submit it to the district heating provider. Only then would the company update the measurements and start billing accordingly.
The residents shouldn't have even attempted this without getting the utility company's green light first.

The whole mess depends on what they actually did. Did they add radiators to those later additions, or just seal off the balconies? If they added radiators, the heat load went up—which means they're essentially stealing even more energy.

You can report them to the utility company, and they’ll send someone out to inspect. But if the residents refuse to let the inspector into their unit—which, legally speaking, they don't have to do—then you’re stuck just sitting there hating them.

If that doesn't work, your only other option is to sue the residents. Just be warned: you'll likely screw yourself over. By the time you cover all the legal fees and expert witness costs, you'll be freezing to death anyway, making the heating irrelevant. 🙂

Everything I just laid out is right there in the Terms of Service for thermal energy supply. Go read them.

Don't we have inspectors for this stuff? Like building inspectors for when people start knocking down walls, or local code enforcement for things like windows and railings?

Out of everything mentioned, apartment renovations seem like the biggest deal since they actually affect safety and property value. There really should be proper inspections for that, and those inspectors need enough teeth to actually verify what's going on inside.

If I were looking into this, I’d probably start by asking questions at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I've got a "reconfigured" layout in my own place too, but all my interior walls are just drywall—definitely not load-bearing—though I'm not even sure if you need permits for that. I did hear some concrete cutting going on near the entrance once, but I'm banking on the fact that the building is made of those standard 8-inch reinforced concrete blocks, so hopefully nobody's hacking away at anything vital.

But yeah, I get why people are worried.

I see these other issues popping up too, so I'm definitely interested in learning more about it.

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Regarding the whole heating cost issue, we actually got some quotes for installing remote reading devices. The idea was that every unit would pay for exactly what they used, but the contractors' pricing depended on hitting a minimum number of households switching over. I'm sure there are plenty of other owners in the building paying way more than they should and would jump at the chance to opt out of the shared billing.

From what I recall reading in the news, the utility company is required to offer individual billing to anyone who wants to switch. So, I assume they’d have to find a way to make it work even if only one unit decides to go solo (even though that’d probably be way more expensive if it's even possible).

There's no need to make a scene over drilling a hole in the wall. Even if it’s a load-bearing one, it isn't going to compromise the structural integrity of the building.

The building inspector doesn't have the authority to just barge into your apartment whenever they feel like it.

As for switching to individual billing, every single resident on the shared meter has to sign off on it. Given how they handled things previously, there's zero chance they'll agree to it now.