NYC NOW - October 28, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

New data shared by street safety advocates find that the vast majority of pedestrians killed in New York City this year were in intersections with limited visibility for drivers. Plus, the National Weather Service warns of an elevated risk of wildfires in much of the region on Monday. Also, WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with Laura Popa, Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Buildings, about its plan for landlords to combat the climate crisis. And finally, fans are excited to welcome the World Series back to the Bronx Monday night as the Yankees continue their matchup against the LA Dodgers.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, October 28th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The vast majority pedestrians killed in New York City this year were in intersections with limited visibility for drivers. That's according to new data shared by street safety advocates at transportation alternatives. The group reports that in the first nine months of this year, 88 pedestrians died in traffic accidents. Nearly 90% of those deadly crashes occurred at intersections without what's known as daylighting. That's a measure that removes parking spots at corners

to improve driver and pedestrian visibility. Last year, Mayor Adam said the city would add daylighting to a thousand intersections every year. An elevated risk of wildfire spread today all across New Jersey and all of Connecticut dry, windy conditions make it easy for empertsons. bursts to spread. The National Weather Service strongly discourages outdoor burning and advise their smokers to make sure their cigarettes are no longer burning after use. Humidity levels are expected to rise tomorrow, but burn restrictions may remain because it's so dry and a lack of recent rain. 58 and partly cloudy right now, sunny and 59 for a high today, and then tonight partly cloudy,

49 for a low, low 50s at the start of game 3 of the World Series, and then tomorrow partly sunny mid-60s before we hit the 70s on Wednesday and Halloween. Stay close. There's more after the break. You'll live and make to NYP now. For WNYC, I'm Michael Hill. Some advocates worry New York City may be scaling back the ambition of a landmark climate law. Local Law 97 went into effect this year. It sets aggressive emissions restrictions on buildings, which account for nearly 70% of the city's carbon pollution, Stricter limits go into effect in 2030.

Now, new rules from the Department of Buildings allow landlords to pay instead of reducing emissions to a degree. That money will go into a fund for climate-friendly projects at affordable housing developments. Laura Popa is the Department of Buildings Deputy Commissioner for enforcement, and she joins us now. Deputy Commissioner, I understand you also worked on the City Council during the drafting of this law, So you've been a part of this one for some time now. Local Law 97 was considered a key part of the city's vision of making the city carbon neutral by 2050. Are we on track? Think we're going to make it?

Hi, Michael. Yes, we are totally on track. Actually, we've made significant progress on implementation to the point where we're just about there with about six months to go. So May 1st, 2025 is when the first compliance reports are due. and we certainly want to get the message out to building owners, submit your compliance reports on time. Since the law was passed in 2019, we've had a three-year advisory board process, and that has informed our rulemaking. We finalized two major rule packages, which basically let building owners know how to determine their emissions, what their emissions are per building type. We established

penalties for noncompliance and mitigation opportunities as required by 97. And then as you said, we recently had a first, excuse me, the third major rule package announced during climate week. We're going to have a hearing on this package in November and we're going to have public comments to consider before the rules are finalized. We are creating an online portal for building owners to submit their compliance reports. We'll be beta testing that with service providers in a couple of months. And then we will be on track to more than triple the size of our staff here at the Bureau of sustainability who are working on local on 97. We're going from about 20 earlier this year to more than 60. So I'd say we are full speed ahead with implementation. Climate-friendly renovations are expensive,

and not every landlord or co-op has the money for them. But advocates express concern that without tough penalties, buildings will opt to pay fines instead of comply. How do you balance that? Well, our approach to 97 has been balanced all along, right? So on the one hand, we're trying to get maximum emissions reductions. And at the same time, we're trying to support building owners as much as we can. And what we're really doing is we are rulemaking around specific provisions in the law. So the council envisioned numerous pathways for compliance. It wasn't just a simplistic one-size-fits-all.

There are wrecks, and those are required. Those are the renewable energy credits. The offsets, this new program that we're having where building owners will fund for deep retrofits and carbon emissions reductions in affordable housing. The penalty mitigation, that is a requirement of Local 1097 itself, right? And so we're going to be dealing with that. So I'd say, again, a balanced approach and not a one-size-fits-all compliance path. The new DOB rules would allow landlords to pay money instead of reducing emissions by up to 10%. Does that mean those buildings will be able to pollute in perpetuity, provided they keep paying? Right. So

Local 97 specifically allows building owners to offset their emissions by 10%. That's part of the requirement of LocalOn 97. That's been around since 2019. So our job was to come up with an appropriate offsets program. And our main goal was to keep the benefits in New York City, the climate benefits, economic benefits and the emissions reductions benefits. So that's why we actually created this brand new program. This type of offset program doesn't exist in other places. So building owners would be able to buy offset certificates for up to 10% of their emissions limits, again, as required by local on 97. And they'll be funding deep electrification retrofits in affordable housing buildings who already don't have to reduce their emissions. So this is the important principle

an environmental integrity principle of additionality. So overall, the city's emissions will be going down because of this offsets program. Laura Popa is the Department of Buildings Deputy Commissioner for enforcement. Commissioner, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Take care. The New York Yankees are off to a rough start in the World Series. The team is looking to bounce back against the Dodgers as the series moves tonight to the Bronx.

And as the series moves to the boogie down today, fans are waiting with baited breath. Jackson Hawkins from Westchester was in line at Billy's Sports Bar. He says he's waited 15 long years for this moment. We're 22 years old. We were seven years old when we, 2009, we don't really even, I mean, I can speak for myself, but we don't really remember that. Marshall Davy was setting at the Bard Yankee Tavern. He says he's coming from across the globe to catch this moment. I'm from Australia. Every time the Yankees make the World Series, I fly to New York for it. We're here in the heart of it. This is where it lives and breezes. Game three is tonight at eight in the Bronx.

The first team to take four out of seven games wins the series. The Dodgers lead right now, two games to know. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.