exclusive

Judge orders co-op board to allow air conditioning installation

Cooler heads prevailed.

An ailing elderly man won a lawsuit against his stuffy Central Park co-op board after it tried to block him from installing a high-powered air-conditioning system to improve his health.

“I was ecstatic,” Michael Kaplan, 73, who suffers from heart problems, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, said of the Manhattan court ruling.

The decision “showed that you just can’t have boards keep bullying you and stepping on my rights.”

Kaplan, who runs the real-estate firm Kaplan and Companies, lives with his wife in a palatial, 22nd-floor spread made up of three combined units at 200 Central Park South.

He said his apartment is unique because the building’s heating system is located directly below him, causing his unit to feel like a furnace and worsening his health conditions.

Kaplan sued last year to install three A/C condensers on his terrace, arguing the system is virtually silent and would require only a 2-inch hole in the wall. He said the building’s interior system wasn’t not powerful enough to keep his pad cool.

The board’s lawyer, Alan Gelb, countered that building’s rules prevent owners from putting anything on their terraces besides small planters and patio furniture.

“All of this is in the interest of maintaining the physical integrity of the building,” Gelb told The Post.

“It’s a slippery slope,” Gelb said. “It starts a process where if the building can’t say no to Kaplan, then why can’t the next person have [an A/C] and the next and the next?”

But Justice Arthur Engoron blasted the board for running “roughshod” over Kaplan’s rights by “unreasonably” withholding approval for alterations to his private penthouse terrace.

Kaplan’s lawyer, Gil Feder, said he was “incredibly pleased’’ with the decision. Gelb said the board is considering an appeal.