“We’ll be looking to high-performance innovations, such as passive-house, carbon-neutral or zero net energy strategies, to inform the city’s standards to reduce energy use in both new construction and our older building stock,” said Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for the mayor.

Buildings constructed to passive standards aren’t widespread enough for consumers to inadvertently bump into them — they still have to be sought out. Among the small adherent developments is 255 Columbia Street, a 13-unit building in Brooklyn marketed in late 2013. And dozens of townhouses in Brooklyn and Manhattan are undergoing passive retrofits.

The cost of creating a passive house has been much debated. A few years ago, the Passivhaus Institut put the additional cost in the United States at somewhere around 6 percent. But proponents say costs have come down as prices for materials dropped and contractors have become more familiar with passive-building methods. Triple-pane windows and added insulation may add costs upfront, but these expenses are offset by the smaller boilers and smaller heating and air-conditioning systems passive houses require.

Kurt Roeloffs renovated his townhouse on West 88th Street in Manhattan using passive systems that he says did not add any extra costs to the renovation. Since moving in this past November, he’s been nothing but satisfied living in his home, where the temperature is a constant 72 degrees, and he can walk around barefoot in a T-shirt in total comfort in the winter.

“We were so impressed with how quiet it is, and how comfortable it is,” he said. “The air just smells fresh and sweet, even after we cook, because the filters get rid of it so quickly.”

His house uses an energy recovery ventilator, which pushes out stale air while drawing in fresh air, exchanging heat in the process. During the winter, heat from the exhausted air is transferred to the incoming cold air; and in summer, heat and humidity are drawn out of incoming air and transferred to the outgoing stale air.

Image The Lynch family's kitchen. Credit... Pablo Enriquez for The New York Times

David and Aliana Spungen have two-story windows in the kitchen of their Brooklyn Heights townhouse, recently retrofitted to passive house standards.