02 Feb Local Law 84 & 133 Deadline – May 1st 2024 – Prepare Your Building
If you are residing in NYC and have a building that the Benchmarking law covers, you are automatically required to be punctual with your deadline report by May 1st. Failure to do so or missing the deadline will lead to a $500 penalty. And if there are still no benchmarking reports in place, it will keep on increasing every following 3 months.
While the laws are in place, if a certain building owner believes strongly that there is a mistake or their property does not fall under the laws, the owner can challenge deadlines. The NYC Department of Buildings offers a Benchmarking violation challenge form. You need to carefully go through the form and fill it out precisely before submitting it in under 30 days.
There are so many questions from the homeowners regarding these laws. Please don’t fret, as in this blog, we will guide you through NYC Local Law 84 & 133.
Understanding The Local Law 84 & 133
Be it LL84 or LL133, both of these demand that all the homeowners and property managers in New York City report their annual water usage and buildings’ energy usage to the city if their properties are over 25000 square feet. These two laws are also known as the ‘Energy & Water reporting law’ or the ‘Energy Benchmarking Law.’
Since we are having the conversation, when the Local Law 84 law was first introduced, it stated that homeowners who have properties over 50000 sq ft need to submit their annual report of water and energy usage. However, when the LL133 was introduced in 2017, it suggested that every property manager or homeowner who has properties over 25000 sq ft must submit reports of energy and water usage to the city annually.
The Exceptions Of LL133
Before you get rallied up, you should know that the Local Law 133 also introduced an exception to the benchmarking law:
- Less than three-storeyed buildings.
- Dwellings that are either attached, semi-attached, or detached, where the owner or the property manager of each dwelling owns the HVAC and hot water systems. And the owner needs to provide the maintenance as well.
- Neither the hot water system nor the HVAC should serve any more than two dwellings.
- The fact that these conditions are met is certified by a registered professional.
If you are a homeowner and own property over 25000 square feet but you meet these conditions, you do not fall in the benchmarking law, even if your property falls under the area requirement. Therefore, you do not need to submit an annual energy and water usage report to the city.
The Procedure Of Building Benchmarking
While benchmarking a building may seem like a daunting task, especially if you are a beginner, it is quite easy when you know the procedures:
- The first thing you need to do is check the list of covered buildings. This list publishes each year in February on the Greener website.
- After that, you need to assess the portfolio manager and create an account.
You may notice that the energy consumption data is a requirement for all the listed properties. However, you might not see the data requirement for water usage. This is because the data on water usage is only required if an automatic water meter is installed on your property by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection.
Whether your building is on the list by accident or you don’t see your building on the list, even if your property meets the requirements, you can get in touch with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability to get it resolved.
How To Benchmark A Building For The First Time?
While benchmarking a building for the first time may seem complicated, the portfolio manager site gives you a detailed list to simplify the process. Irrespective of the occupancy classification, the data below needs to get collected for every property:
- Property name
- Irrigated area
- Property address
- Total gross floor area
- Number of buildings
- Year built
- 12 consecutive months of energy consumption
- Occupancy
If any additional information is required, the portfolio manager will list accordingly. You should know that if a building is already on the list, all you need to do is review the information and check if any requirements for edits.
How To Upload The Energy And Water Data
Once you are done adding the property to the portfolio manager, water and energy data can be uploaded automatically. However, you need to go through the initial configuration before that. For water benchmarking:
- First, you need to make sure that the NYC Department of Environmental Protection is added to your account in the portfolio manager as a contact.
- You need to grant full access after sharing your properties’ profiles with them once they have accepted to be your contact.
- The portfolio manager will request your DEP number and BBL.
For energy benchmarking automatically, the procedure is kind of similar with a few additional steps:
- The property owner must register at a registered website and obtain a requestor ID after setting up the energy metering in the Portfolio Manager.
- To request automatic data uploading, the building owner must head over to the registered website again after the procedure.
Things You Need To Make Sure
Before creating and submitting your benchmarking report, you must ensure that all the data is correct and precise. The report you are trying to submit should include the full calendar year for each variable being metered.
While the benchmarking reports are created and submitted through the portfolio manager, they msut get filled automatically with the data of the corresponding year. Nevertheless, you ought to provide the updated report from the NYC government.
Wrapping up
You should make sure that the BIN and BBL are correctly added to the portfolio manager to ensure compliance with the LL84 and Local Law 133 benchmarking laws. Incorrect BBL (Borough, Block, and Lot number) or BIN (Building Identification Number) might lead to penalties for non-compliance even if the rest of the procedures are correct to the end.
It is understandable that all these processes seem challenging if you are a first-timer. Consider taking the assistance of the experts at the Cotocon group. From reducing your energy costs, cutting down fines to assisting you in making an annual report, the Cotocon group is your one-stop solution.
FAQ
What is the deadline for filing LL84/133?
The deadline for filing the report is May 1st of each year. Any sort of delay will lead to penalties.
How do I handle LL84/LL133 Violations?
The only way to handle the violations is by paying the associated fine for the delay in report submission. The reports must be filed as soon as possible to avoid further violations and penalties.
What are the penalties for not complying with Local Law 84/133?
After missing the deadline of May 1st, you are required to pay a $500 fine. And if you miss the second deadline, which is in August, you will need to pay a fine of $1000.