June 15, 2009
This hearing has been moved to Friday June 26 at 10 AM.
On Earth Day 2009, the City announced a package of four bills mandating energy efficiency upgrades for a large percentage of the city’s structures. The New York City Council is holding a hearing on these bills on
Friday, June 19 at 10am. These are important bills – both in their scope and content. We encourage you to read up on the proposals, and if you have an opinion, go to the hearing, participate, and testify. Public input absolutely impacts the final form of these bills, and the committee stage is where the major revisions will take place.
A more thorough description of the bills is below, but in short, this legislation would:
Create a New York City Energy Code that existing buildings will have to meet whenever they undergo renovations;
Require buildings of 50,000 square feet or more to conduct an energy audit once every ten years and make any improvements that pay for themselves within five years;
Require 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;
Require 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
City officials argue that these requirements will ultimately generate 2,000 new jobs in energy auditing and related fields, temporary construction jobs, and save property owners roughly $750 million annually in energy costs. Beginning in 2013, the 22,000 buildings of over 50,000 square feet in the city will be impacted – nearly half of the built square footage of the City.
Public hearings are just that, open to the public. The
Environmental Protection Committee meets
Friday, June 19, at 10:00 AM in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Here are the
directions. Generally, a panel of industry leaders and organizations will testify on the legislation to the committee first. Then members of the public simply sign up to testify – first come, first serve. It is a simple process.
The committee is chaired by
Councilmember James F. Gennaro (Queens), and the committee members are Councilmembers Bill de Blasio, Elizabeth Crowley,
Mathieu Eugene,
Oliver Koppell,
Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Erik Ulrich, Peter F. Vallone, Jr., and Thomas White, Jr.
You can read the
City’s Earth Day press release, or look at further analysis, including who is supporting the package and who is not, from the
Sallan Foundation, the
New York Times, the
Gotham Gazette,
CoStar, and
Business Green.
A more detailed summary of each bill, along with a link to the original text from which the summary was sourced, after the jump!
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