City Planning failed to prepare a waste prevention and recycling plan and failed to submit annual reports to Sanitation. On September 24, 2014, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer released an audit finding that the New York City Department of City Planning did not comply with Local Law 36. Local Law 36 was enacted in 2010 to amend the City’s recycling provision in Local Law 19.

Local Law 36 requires each City agency to develop a waste prevention, reuse, and recycling plan and submit the plan to the Department of Sanitation for approval each year by July 1. Local Law 36 also requires each agency to designate a lead recycling or sustainability coordinator for the agency, and an assistant coordinator for each additional building the agency occupies. In addition, Local Law 36 requires that the lead recycling coordinator for each agency submit a report to the head of its agency and DSNY “summarizing actions taken to implement the waste prevention, reuse and recycling plan for the previous twelve-month reporting period, proposed actions to be taken to implement such plan, and updates or changes to any information included in such plan.”

The audit found that City Planning complied with the Local Law 36 requirements that an agency separates its recyclable material. However, City Planning designated only one recycling coordinator in charge of each of DCP’s six facilities, did not have a waste prevention, reuse, and recycling plan by July 1, 2011, and did not submit annual reports for 2012 or 2013. The audit report revealed that City Planning did take additional measures, outside the requirements of Local Law 36, by reducing its paper usage, donating unwanted office supplies to “Materials for the Arts,” and participating in a city-wide contract for the disposal of batteries and other hazardous wastes.

The Deputy Comptroller for Audit, Marjorie Landa, submitted a draft of the findings and recommendations of the audit to Department of City Planning Chairman and Director Carl Weisbrod on August 15, 2014. The report recommended that City Planning prepare its waste prevention, reuse and recycling plan as soon as practical and submit the required annual reports to its Director and the New York City Department of Sanitation by July 1 of each year and designate additional assistant coordinators for each borough office. On August 21 2014, City Planning responded, agreeing with the recommendations and took steps to implement them.

Letter Report on the New York City Department of City Planning’s Compliance with Local Law 36. 7R14-103AL, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer (September 24, 2014).

By: Jonathan Manfre (Jonathan is a CityLaw Intern and a Student at New York Law School, Class of 2015).