N.Y.C. Admin. Code § L.L. 2011/020: L.L. 2011/020

Enactment date: 4/29/2011

Int. No. 341-A

By Council Members Dilan, Barron, Brewer, Cabrera, Chin, Comrie, Fidler, Garodnick, Gentile, Gonzalez, James, Koppell, Koslowitz, Lander, Mark-Viverito, Nelson, Palma, Rose, Vann, Williams, Rodriguez, Van Bramer, Halloran, Levin, Lappin, Recchia, Vallone, Crowley, Gennaro, Jackson, Wills, Greenfield, Reyna, Koo and Ulrich

A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York and the New York city building code, in relation to allowing large solar rooftop installations.

Be it enacted by the Council as follows:

Section 1. Legislative findings and intent. The Council finds that solar energy can meet some of New York City's energy needs, and that it is cleaner, cheaper, more sustainable and provides greater energy security. Growth in the solar power industry is also expected to create many jobs in New York City because the City has adequate solar resources to aggressively pursue increased solar power installations. Growth in the solar industry also has the potential to reduce energy costs over time. However existing Building Code provisions limit the percentage of the area of a roof that photovoltaic and solar thermal panels may cover without counting as additional height or stories making it more costly to install solar power collection and generation systems now. Therefore the Council finds that it is in the best interests of the City to remove these barriers and further incentivize installations of solar thermal and photovoltaic panels by permitting more than one third of the area of the roof to be covered by solar photovoltaic and solar thermal panels without counting as an additional floor.

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[Consolidated provisions are not included in this Appendix A]

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§ 5. This local law shall take effect immediately.