Major NYC climate law in jeopardy as 400 people virtually crash buildings meeting

Hundreds of people crashed what would have been a routine Department of Buildings meeting to draw attention to proposals by the New York City mayor that they say could gut a landmark piece of climate legislation in the city.

Signed in 2019, Local Law 97 aims to put a cap on carbon pollution from buildings, the metro area's largest source of greenhouse gases, accounting for more than 70% of the city’s emissions. The law is also the centerpiece of the city's Climate Mobilization Act. But draft rules proposed by the Adams administration in early October include possible loopholes that could allow wealthy building owners to pay their way out of making the necessary retrofits for energy efficiency. The rules also fall short of addressing building emissions from sources other than operations, such as maintenance and renovations.

On the last day of the public comment period, more than 400 participants — including advocates and a group of city councilmembers — turned out to ask Mayor Eric Adams to set enforceable standards backed by penalties strong enough to ensure the law is effective. They also want the Adams administration to limit loopholes for rich landlords and provide more assistance for low-to-middle-income homeowners who can’t afford to comply. Without these added measures, advocates say the ambitious law could be rendered toothless.

“The greatest threat to the people of New York City is climate change,” said City Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who represents District 33 in Brooklyn, which includes or borders three superfund sites. “We have no choice but to drive down emissions and stave off climate catastrophe.”

A half-dozen City Councilmembers told Gothamist that Local Law 97 is “the most important law” they have passed in their careers. It requires most buildings over 25,000 square feet to meet new higher energy efficiency standards and emissions limits by 2024. By 2030, NYC’s covered buildings must collectively reduce carbon emissions by 40%, and by 80% in 2050.

“The mayor's proposed rule is a get-out-of-jail-free card for landlords whose dirty buildings are polluting the city,” said Pete Sikora, climate and inequality campaigns director at New York Communities for Change.

According to the mayor’s office, this period represents just the first round of proposals for the 2019 law. “The first batch of proposed rules announced last month represent a first step on Renewable Energy Credits, and DOB will continue this work on limiting their use in the future,” wrote the mayor’s spokesman, Charles Lutvak, in an email to Gothamist.

The REC loophole

The law’s biggest loophole revolves around the renewable energy credit, REC, which represents the purchase of one megawatt-hour of electricity from a renewable energy source. In the case of Local Law 97, a buyer could claim all the benefits of this green power despite not actually using it. Landlords can use these REC certificates to, at least on paper, offset the pollution they’re still creating.

The original legislation and the proposed regulations do not limit the use of RECs, which is part of what advocates and the City Council want clarified. In a letter earlier this month, 26 city councilmembers asked the mayor to set a cap of 30% on RECs.

“At the heart of Local Law 97 is an effort to put the burden of undoing decades of harm on those that have propagated this harm,” said Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez, who represents District 34. “The proposed use of unlimited Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) would severely undercut the law.”

The New York City Comptroller’s office released a report Nov. 15 warning that the unfettered use of RECs would weaken Local Law 97 significantly. As it stands, only 30% of current buildings would fail to meet initial emissions requirements after they start in 2024, but this number would rise to more than 70% by 2030 — when the city’s rules become more stringent. The REC loophole could discourage landlords from doing the necessary work to hit the city’s targets.

“We know that major real estate companies will opt to purchase those RECs instead of upgrading their buildings to high energy efficiency, leaving the main source of emissions unchanged, and the potential of creating thousands of green jobs, forgotten,” Gutiérrez said.

The Councilmembers and advocates also want the implementation to address emissions outside of operations, such as those created by renovations and maintenance. Last year, standard materials such as concrete, steel and bricks were estimated at about 9% of global energy-related carbon release. Approximately 100 billion tons of waste is created annually by construction activities, with about 35% of that ending up in landfills.

Making climate laws affordable

While wealthy landlords can skirt the law with money, low-to-middle income homeowners in co-ops and condos large enough to fall under the regulation cannot afford such luxury. The board and residents of Glen Oaks Village, a Queens co-op with nearly 3,000 units, say they want to comply with the law, but their homeowners — most of whom make less than $100,000 — cannot afford the energy retrofits, the fines or even the RECs to opt out. Large one-bedroom abodes go for around $250,000, which makes them attractive to New Yorkers who have always wanted to own real estate in the city.

Their board president, Bob Friedrich, said just upgrading the boilers, which he said currently have a lot of life left in them, would cost more than $9,000 per unit — a steep sum for most who live there. Their fines for noncompliance would amount to over $1 million annually, as calculated by Friedrich. The law calls for a penalty of $268 per metric ton of emissions created.

They can’t afford to pay the penalty or opt out with the less expensive choice of buying RECs to avoid it. To fully comply with Local Law 97, Friedrich estimated a cost of about $22 million for the entire 125-acre co-op and its 10,000 inhabitants.

“It's an absolute disaster,” said Friedrich, who is also president of the Presidents Co-op and Condo Council. “The residents here in Glen Oaks and many of the co-ops simply don't have the money to afford what they're asking us to do.”

One of the provisions requested by advocates and the City Council is increased assistance to the New York City Housing Authority and other forms of affordable housing to retrofit their buildings. Friedrich said what working class homeowners need is more time and a tax abatement that would allow them to claim the full amount of compliance, not loans and financing that could bankrupt them.

The chief concerns expressed during the public hearing center around fears that the law could become ineffectual. Jennifer Gunby, senior manager for state and local advocacy at the U.S. Green Building Council, said the law needs better definitions. The use of vague terms like “good faith effort” and unclear enforcement when it comes to penalties and timelines could further erode the government’s power or will to enforce the rules, and allow landlords to claim they are making an effort to comply without showing any evidence of doing so.

“Their goal is not to levy heavy fines on as many buildings as possible and increase their revenue,” Gunby said. “Their intent is to improve the operations of buildings, to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in the city, improving health and getting to the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. So they want to help building owners comply.”

Laura Popa, the Department of Buildings' deputy commissioner for sustainability, stated during Monday’s hearing that they intend to limit RECs at some point in the future. Lutvak, the mayor’s spokesman, added that “DOB’s rulemaking process will continue to be informed by careful study by the department’s Bureau of Sustainability along with close collaboration with other city agencies, the Climate Advisory Board, the Local law 97 Working Groups, and partners throughout government.”

In the meantime, advocates fear the clock is ticking faster than the city can act. Scientists warn that only nine years are left to avert the worst effects of climate change. Waiting to implement stringent and robust implementation and clearly defining the law could jeopardize the livelihoods and health of New York City’s more than 8 million inhabitants.

“Tens of thousands of good jobs are at stake here. Air quality improvements are at stake here, and most importantly our collective future,” said Sikora from New York Communities for Change. “Whether or not we stave off a global catastrophe that has the potential to drown New York City under rising seas while we're all baking in heat waves.”