New York City Greener Greater Buildings Plan - PlaNYC

Local Law 85 is one of a series of Local Laws which as a group are known as the New York City Greener Greater Buildings Plan - PlaNYC. The specific purpose behind Local Law 85 is to amend the NYC Energy Code which sets standards for energy performance for existing buildings. The other Local Laws that make up the suite of the Greener Greater Buildings laws are: * Local Law 84 - requiring larger buildings to annually benchmark their energy performance; * Local Law 87 - requiring larger buildings to conduct an energy audit and retro-commissioning every ten years starting in 2013, and * Local Law 88 - requiring that lighting in non-residential spaces be upgraded along with the installation of sub-meters in larger tenant spaces by 2025 The overriding goal of these Local Laws is to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 30% in New York City by the year 2030 (using 2005 as the baseline). Prior to the enactment of Local Law 85, there was a friendly loophole in the NYC energy code which allowed buildings making smaller renovations to ignore the code requiring upgraded energy efficiencies. The net effect of allowing this loophole to continue was that very little progress was being made to achieve the desired city wide energy efficiencies. With the enactment of Local Law 85, all renovations, large or small must now meet code. Progress to date toward the overall goal of a 30% reduction is just gaining traction. Local Law 85 has been in effect since July 2010, Local Law 84 (Benchmarking) has been in effect only for about one year and Local Law 87 (energy audits and retro-commissioning) will start next year (2013). However, to jump start the process, the mayor's office has mandated that city-owned buildings meet their goal of a 30% reduction by 2017. Layering the effect of Local Law 85 with Local Law 87 and the accelerated time line of city-owned buildings, the rate of reduction should making meaningful progress by the end of 2013. George Crawford is a principal of NYG Green Partners LLC, New York, N.Y.