NYC Hiring Staff to Ramp Up Local Law 97 Enforcement

New York City is once again looking to boost the number of workers charged with enforcing Local Law 97, its carbon emissions reduction law, amid criticism of understaffing and a looming deadline for landlords to comply with the regulations.

The Department of Buildings, which grew its staffers overseeing the law from 21 to 30 as of September, is in the process of onboarding another eight people and is looking to bring on 20 more before May 2025, when owners will need to start filing reports about their portfolios’ emissions, a spokesperson for the DOB told Commercial Observer.

The agency is looking to bring on lawyers, auditors, designers and data specialists to help enforce the regulations, the spokesperson added. The news was first reported by Crain’s New York Business.

And it was able to boost the group’s headcount thanks to a $20 million grant it received from the federal government last week.

DOB’s staffing increase comes after carbon-reduction advocates and New York City Council members slammed the agency for not having enough workers to make sure owners are compliant with Local Law 97 before it fully kicks into gear.

Local Law 97, which went into effect this year and will roll out in phases, aims to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent for buildings of at least 25,000 square feet throughout the city by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Landlords need to file initial reports on their properties by May 1, 2025, and afterward can start to face fines for not meeting the emission-reduction benchmarks, providing false reports, or for not filing a report at all. Owners can get a break for 2025 if they file plans with the DOB to show work is being done to decarbonize their portfolios.

The agency kicked off the year with only 11 people tasked with reviewing and auditing landlords’ reports on their buildings’ carbon emissions to make sure the filings are accurate and to levy fines if necessary, the Gothamist reported.

After pushback from elected officials, the DOB nearly doubled the staff by March and has been working to boost headcount since, City Limits reported. 

But part of the problem has been finding the right candidates for the jobs. Some require specific licensing or certifications and “have historically been difficult for DOB to fill due to strong competition from private industry,” a DOB spokesperson previously told City Limits.

While the city has worked on staffing enforcement, an effort to stop the law in its tracks has been making its way through the courts.

In May, a state appeals court revived a 2022 lawsuit filed by a collection of cooperative and building owners in Queens who want to smack down the regulations, Crain’s reported.

Nicholas Rizzi can be reached at nrizzi@commercialobserver.com.