A panel of state Court of Appeals judges on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that sought to overturn Local Law 97, ending a longshot, more-than-three-year court battle against a city law that requires landlords to slash carbon emissions from their buildings.
The statue was signed into law in 2019 and took effect at the start of 2024. It requires most buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to meet escalating limits on their greenhouse gas emissions or face fines.
A state judge in 2023 had already dismissed some arguments made in the lawsuit but on appeal allowed to advance in court the counterintuitive argument that state climate law actually blocks Local Law 97. On Thursday seven New York judges in a nine-page decision firmly stated that state climate law does not supersede Local Law 97 and dismissed the lawsuit.
Two Queens cooperatives — Glen Oaks Village and Bay Terrace Cooperative Section I —led the lawsuit, originally filed in 2022.
“It’s disappointing,” said Warren Schreiber, president of the Bay Terrace Cooperative Section I in eastern Queens and co-president of the Presidents Coop and Condo Council. “I don’t believe that we have any other legal options. I disagree, but I respect the court.”
The court ruling cannot be appealed because the New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the state.
Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department, described the ruling as “a victory for public health and the environment.”
State Attorney General Letitia James’ office also backed the Adams administration’s defense in 2024 court papers arguing that Local Law 97 is “a vital tool” in reducing the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions and said if the law were blocked from being implemented, it could have “potentially devastating consequences for the economy, public health and environment of the state.”
