According to data released by the New York City Department of Buildings on September 14, almost all building owners successfully filed their required 2024 Local Law 97 reports. Out of those that submitted documentation on time, 95% met the strict criteria for either direct greenhouse gas emissions limits or qualifying one-time building upgrades.
Calendar year 2024 marked the official kickoff for compliance under Local Law 97, a sweeping municipal mandate requiring most large buildings exceeding 25,000 square feet to curb their carbon footprints and report their metrics to the city by August 29, 2025. The legislation is designed to aggressively shrink greenhouse gas emissions across the five boroughs, pushing the real estate sector toward deep decarbonization over the coming decades.
The Department of Buildings noted that two distinct compliance pathways—Article 320 and Article 321—governed the reporting requirements for this initial milestone. Out of the 29,031 properties mandated to report during this first cycle, roughly 7%, or 1,911 properties, failed to submit their paperwork by the initial deadline.
The Article 320 pathway specifically targets larger commercial and market-rate residential buildings, requiring them to document annual emissions and stay within increasingly stringent limits. Meanwhile, the Article 321 pathway accommodates houses of worship and qualifying affordable multifamily properties, allowing them to meet obligations through alternative performance metrics or standardized energy conservation measures. Certain affordable housing categories, however, benefit from delayed reporting start dates stretching into 2027 and 2036 depending on their specific financing programs.
Despite the initial deadline lapse for a small fraction of buildings, city officials emphasize that the door is not entirely closed for those willing to correct course. Laura Popa, the deputy commissioner of sustainability at the New York City Department of Buildings, discussed the enforcement landscape during a recent webinar hosted by the Urban Green Council.
"At this point, there’s only a little over 1,000 properties that haven’t filed yet, and I say yet because we’re pursuing enforcement against them," Popa explained during the virtual event.
Article 320 properties generally encompass market-rate buildings across various commercial and residential use types. Approximately 11,000 properties, comprising nearly 17,000 individual buildings, were mandated to report under Article 320 for the 2025 reporting cycle. Multifamily housing dominated this group, accounting for 45% of the properties tracked under the Borough, Block, and Lot (BBL) designation. Office spaces followed at 17%, with hotels making up 5%, and a combined 8% split evenly between K-12 schools and non-refrigerated warehouses.
Of those Article 320 properties, more than 9,950 successfully met their emissions limits for 2024, representing 95% of the total filings. According to Emily Hoffman, the director of building energy and emissions performance at the DOB, the vast majority of these compliant properties improved their operational performance by implementing tangible building upgrades and targeted energy-efficiency measures. These improvements ranged from lighting overhauls and thermal envelope enhancements to the installation of modern heat pumps and sophisticated building energy management systems.
Conversely, only 470 BBL properties exceeded their assigned 2024 emissions caps. Among those over the limit, roughly 32% missed the threshold by less than 10%. Just over 40%, translating to 197 individual buildings, reported emissions levels ranging between 10% and 50% above their legal limits.
Local Law 97 offers various alternative compliance mechanisms, allowing eligible property owners to leverage offsets, adjustments, deductions, and alternative calculation methodologies. However, uptake for these specialized compliance tools remained low during the first year. Only a handful of properties utilized them: 79 relied on Affordable Housing Reinvestment Fund offsets, 31 incorporated solar energy, 10 installed combined heat and power systems, and six utilized beneficial electrification credits, which financially reward owners who swap out fossil fuel heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems for high-efficiency electric equipment. No properties utilized offsite energy storage, onsite storage, cell towers, fuel cells, or alternative fuel deductions.
To cushion the blow for properties struggling to meet compliance, the law permits penalty mitigation for owners who can successfully demonstrate a good faith effort to comply. Approximately 32% of the buildings that exceeded their emissions caps formally requested penalty mitigation.
"An owner can show they’ve made good faith efforts and… request penalty mitigation [through] several categories," Popa noted. She highlighted that owners can demonstrate their property is a critical facility, such as a hospital, or provide proof that upgrade work is actively underway. Alternatively, owners can submit a comprehensive decarbonization plan extending out to 2050 or document ongoing collaborations with local utility providers to expand a building’s electrical capacity.
Out of the 149 properties that requested a penalty break based on good faith efforts, more than two-thirds—totaling 102 properties—opted to submit comprehensive decarbonization plans. Meanwhile, data quality issues proved remarkably rare, with fewer than 1% of properties filing with deficient data.
Article 321
The Article 321 framework provides a specialized compliance route for houses of worship and affordable housing properties where at least 35% of the units feature rent-reduced terms. These entities can satisfy Local Law 97 regulations through a one-time obligation fulfilled either by achieving specific emissions performance reductions or by completing a prescribed suite of energy conservation measures.
More than 83% of properties filing under Article 321 elected to use the prescriptive pathway, which mandates that building owners implement a minimum of 13 separate energy and emissions performance improvements. Nearly 30% of these owners requested penalty mitigation to secure additional time to finish the required construction and retrofitting work. Among the subset of owners choosing the performance-based pathway, over 90% reported that they had already achieved compliance with the much more stringent emissions limits scheduled to take effect in 2030.
Geographically, nearly half of all Article 320 properties are located in Manhattan, which posted the highest borough-wide filing rate at an impressive 98% alongside a 95% emissions compliance rate. Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx each maintained robust filing rates hovering between 92% and 93%. Staten Island recorded the lowest filing rate at 84%, though it also contained the smallest absolute number of Article 320 properties.
Asking for action, then forcing it through fines
Popa emphasized that the Department of Buildings takes its enforcement mandate seriously, deploying a strategic blend of administrative outreach, official notices, and financial penalties to drive compliance.
"This first year, we issued notices of deficiency, or NODs," Popa said. "They were given to owners who didn’t fulfill their obligations, like filing on time, and then basically gave them the opportunity to comply within 60 days."
Local Law 97 establishes substantial financial penalties for properties that fail to respect emissions limits, charging up to $268 for every metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted above a building’s designated annual allowance.
The DOB dispatched 1,014 notices of deficiency to Article 320 buildings cited for failing to file. Following the notices, 239 properties submitted late filings, and another 111 cases were successfully resolved based on valid exemptions or regulatory exceptions. The remaining 664 properties were subsequently entered into administrative proceedings through the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, a move that successfully nudged an additional 65 owners to file.
"We’re down to 599 and counting. Our goal this year is… to get 100% filing," Popa stated.
For emissions violations, the city issued 164 notices of deficiency, with potential fines calculated directly from emissions reports submitted by property owners and thoroughly audited by the agency. Owners can resolve these emissions notices by purchasing Affordable Housing Reinvestment Fund offsets, paying the assessed financial penalties, or submitting a formal remedial plan for noncompliance. To date, five owners have resolved their emissions notices via offsets, while 15 have settled through direct penalty payments.
"We have about 15 that are in the process of paying, or they’ve paid their penalties, and that total amount is around $270,000, representing those buildings that we’re collecting in penalties so far," Popa reported.
For Article 321 properties, the DOB issued 476 notices of deficiency, which yielded 50 late filings. The agency has already begun issuing standardized $10,000 violations to properties that continue to ignore filing requirements.
"It’s important to recognize that this is the first year of compliance and a new reporting process," Popa remarked, underscoring the city’s balanced approach. "We want to bring owners to the table and work with them, and the NODs are helping to do that. Some people need the threat of fines to act, and high fines are forcing action."
Recognizing that the real estate community is still navigating an unfamiliar regulatory framework, the DOB is actively accepting belated filings in lieu of immediate punitive fines. Owners who have filed but discovered their buildings exceed emissions limits, or those who have fallen behind on prescribed energy conservation measures, are urged to contact the NYC Accelerator and the DOB to map out a clear path forward.
The department is prepared to mediate resolutions and grant extensions to owners who demonstrate a concrete plan and tangible steps toward compliance. However, where blatant noncompliance is identified, the city is aggressively pursuing penalties through administrative courts and direct agency action as mandated by the statutory framework of the law.
Looking ahead to 2030 compliance
When Local Law 97 was initially drafted, early municipal modeling projected that roughly 80% of covered properties were already in compliance with the initial 2024–2029 emissions thresholds, based largely on historical city benchmarking data. Popa attributes the even higher compliance rates observed in year one to a combination of data refinement, discrepancies between how square footage was modeled versus physically measured, and the utilization of alternative compliance pathways.
However, city officials warn that reliance on data refinement will not protect building owners as the regulatory landscape shifts.
"When we hit 2030, so many more building owners are going to have to do something to come into compliance," Popa cautioned. By the year 2030, building owners across New York City must slash their aggregate greenhouse gas emissions by 40%.
The Department of Buildings noted that the purchase of Affordable Housing Reinvestment Fund offsets has successfully generated $1.7 million. These financial contributions are being funneled directly into deep decarbonization projects at affordable housing properties that would otherwise lack the capital to undertake such major retrofits. Thus far, the accumulated funds have been allocated to two major electrification projects focusing on heat pump installations, with city officials anticipating that additional projects will secure funding allocations in the near future.
In its own progress report on the legislation, the Urban Green Council characterized the debut year as a positive indicator of structural efficacy.
"Year one shows Local Law 97 working largely as designed, with high engagement, strong compliance and enforcement paired with flexibility," the council noted. "Properties under Article 320 will now be submitting reports every year to monitor progress, but the real test will come as emissions limits tighten in 2030, when more buildings will need deeper retrofits to comply."
