Building Codes Assistance Project

On April 22, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced comprehensive legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing government, commercial, and residential buildings in America's largest city. The proposal is intended to dramatically reduce the New York City's energy usage and save consumers money, while simultaneously creating thousands of well-paying jobs and significantly reducing New York City's carbon footprint.

The six-point plan consists of four pieces of new legislation and two PlaNYC programs that will achieve carbon reductions, train workers for the estimated 19,000 construction jobs that will be created, and help finance energy-saving improvements using $16 million available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Currently one of 42 states using some version of the IECC in its building code, New York is the only state that amends the IECC with a loophole that allows buildings to circumvent the energy code if they are not taking on massive renovations. The city's Green Buildings Plan looks to create a New York City Energy Code that would require all buildings to comply with the unamended version of the IECC, meaning that any renovation in one of NYC's 1 million buildings must comply to this set of easily applied standards -- resulting in both a significant energy reduction and cost savings.  

This legislation would also require owners of all (both public and private) existing commercial and residential existing buildings over 50,000 square feet to make cost-effective energy efficiency improvements to their buildings once every ten years by conducting an audit, retro-commissioning, and retrofitting their building. Buildings will undergo energy audits with results determining the necessary improvements to be undertaken, and owners will be required to spend on retrofits (many at low or no cost) with payback periods of 5 years or lessthrough energy-related cost-savings. This measure would cover nearly half of the built square footage of New York City.  

The other four points of the plan include:

• Legislation that requires commercial buildings of 50,000 square feet or more to upgrade their lighting to more energy-efficient systems that pay for themselves through energy savings;
• Legislation that requires buildings of 50,000 square feet or more to make an annual benchmark analysis of energy consumption so building owners can better understand what steps they can take to increase efficiency;
• A jobs program that will work with the real estate and construction industries to train the workforce that will fill the estimated 19,000 construction jobs the legislation will create; and
• An innovative financing program that uses $16 million in ARRA federal stimulus money to provide loans for property owners to pay the upfront costs for the efficiency upgrades that eventually pay for themselves.

According to the PlaNYC inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, almost 80 percent of New York City's carbon footprint and $15 billion in annual energy costs comes from buildings' energy use. Once implemented, the legislation will reduce citywide emissions by 5 percent.

Hearings on the entire legislative package are expected in June.  

More information: NYC Mayor's Office press release | NYC Council Legislation Page | Auditing Bill | Lighting Upgrade Bill 

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