Council passes bill requiring landlords provide AC

NEW YORK — THE CITY COUNCIL on Thursday passed Councilmember Lincoln Restler’s Cool Homes For All legislation, which requires landlords to provide cooling systems for tenants at their request, mirroring existing legislation around supplying heat in the winter.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development will conduct enforcement starting in summer of 2030, and will conduct outreach to landlords and tenants. According to a press statement from the council, the four-year onramp will create time to secure energy subsidies in Albany to support the program, and is timed around other city energy-efficiency laws.

580 New Yorkers die every year due to heat-related illnesses, according to the Council, with lack of home air conditioning being the biggest risk factor. In New York City, extreme heat days have more than doubled since the 1970s, yet approximately 850,000 New Yorkers do not have air conditioning installed in their apartments, disproportionately in low-income and Black and Brown neighborhoods.

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