Building owners and managers are ramping up efforts to get their buildings benchmarked for energy usage by the city’s May 1 deadline, or at least within the following 90 days. The PlanNYC2030 office issued a statement earlier this month that eliminates penalties for those that file for benchmarking within those 90 days. This effectively stretches the deadline for compliance with Local Law 84 to August 1.
Additionally, a new benchmarking hotline can be accessed by calling 311 and will be staffed by trained CUNY graduate students available Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Urban Green Council is also leading educational outreach for the benchmarking. Under local law, buildings of 50,000 square feet or more have to benchmark electrical and water usage.
Offices with more than 10,000 square feet will be required to install electrical meters for each tenant and install lighting retrofits by 2025, providing enough time for the majority of leases to turn over. The New York State energy code will also be applied to new construction, alterations and additions.
“With benchmarking you have to say where we are, and how we can get better,” said Frank Edwards, executive managing director of Colliers International. “As you go back and do the retrofits, you use more efficient [items like] motors and pumps.”
But if a building is not particularly efficient, there is nothing in the plan that requires the building owner to make changes right now, explained Robert Ragozine, president Donnelly Sustainable Energy Services.
According to environmental attorney Stan Alpert of counsel to Constantine Cannon, if an owner can tweak the existing systems and make adjustments to have it pay back within five years, “you have to do it.”
“You are now not required by current law to buy new systems,” added Alpert. “It’s absolutely brilliant and means every building above 50,000 square feet will look at their energy use and figure out how to save and do it.”
The class A owners are very focused on it and the class B owners will be in the next wave, predicted Jean Savitsky, chief operating officer of Jones Lang LaSalle.
Dan Nall, director of sustainability at the international engineering firm WSP Flack + Kurtz, said while some building owners view this “as a pain in the butt,” many of them will be “really surprised” at the “excellent” recommendations they are going to get.
“If an owner is meticulous, he or she may not accrue any significant additional benefit, but someone who has been slack about the whole thing, if they follow through with what’s been recommended, they will make out very well on it,” Nall said.
