Climate protesters arrested at City Hall rally to oppose weakening of major NYC law

New York City police arrested more than 10 climate protesters at City Hall on Thursday afternoon during a rally that blocked the building’s west gate, near Murray Street and Broadway.

More than 50 people attended the rally, which denounced the way Mayor Eric Adams is implementing Local Law 97, a measure that forces buildings over 25,000 square feet to reduce their carbon emissions. In September, the Adams administration proposed enforcement rules under a plan called Getting 97 Done that granted extensions and methods for buying out of compliance.

City Councilmembers Erik Bottcher and Pierina Sanchez joined local groups to call on the mayor and the city’s Department of Buildings to fully implement the law, including penalizing noncompliant landlords.

“There should be thousands of people here right now because the truth is that Local Law 97 is the bare minimum of what we should be doing,” said Bottcher, who represents the West Village and Hell’s Kitchen. “We're talking about rolling back the minimum and marching into catastrophe – eyes open.”

The small protest formed a line across the entrance to the plaza surrounding City Hall, chanting “No Delay for Durst” – referring to Douglas Durst, who chairs the Real Estate Board of New York, which has advocated for loosening Local Law 97. The Durst Organization owns Bank of America Tower at 1 Bryant Park, one of the largest buildings in the city. There were nearly as many police at the protest as there were protesters.

“[The enforcement plan] stinks to high heaven,” said Pete Sikora, climate and inequality campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, who was also arrested at the rally. “We are willing to get arrested to send him a message loud and clear that he shouldn’t severely weaken New York’s amazing climate.”

Under Getting 97 Done, landlords can get a two-year extension by showing “good faith efforts.” At a recent DOB hearing about the rules, councilmembers opposing the plan said it will create more oversight work for the understaffed DOB. The agency says its current vacancy rate is 13%, or 236 workers.

“When 89% of buildings are complying with the 2024 standards, we all know that this is legal and doable,” City Councilmember Christopher Marte said through a megaphone at the rally, referring to the portion of large buildings already in line with Local Law 97. Opponents of tentative regulations have expressed concerns that the Adams administration is weakening the law for the remaining 11% of buildings.

Groups at the protest, including New York Public Interest Research Group and TREEage, also demanded a strict limit on Renewable Energy Credits. These credits allow landlords to pay for the pollution they create instead of eradicating it. The only limits that exist are on buildings that opt for the two-year extension and must submit a decarbonization plan.

But some environmental groups support Getting 97 Done, including The New York League of Conservation Voters, the Urban Green Council and the Regional Plan Association.

“As we’ve said time and time again, we don’t want building owners’ money – we want their carbon,” wrote Andrew Rudansky, press secretary of the DOB, in an email to Gothamist. “‘Getting 97 Done’ will deliver on the promise of Local Law 97, helping building owners hit aggressive decarbonization targets by getting them to put their money into retrofits as opposed to fines.”

“We don't give that kind of discretion to disobey the law to anybody else,” said Eric Weltman, senior organizer with Food and Water Watch. “If you get caught jumping a turnstile, it's not like you can say to the police: Oh, let me go, and I promise to obey the law in two years.”

Last week, hundreds attended the DOB’s public hearing that closed out the comment period for Local Law 97's proposed implementation. With a few weeks left before the department plans to finalize the rules, community members called the protest an “act of civil disobedience” to push the mayor not to go ahead with his tentative plans.

If the DOB goes forward with the proposed rules, they will become final by the end of 2023.