OATH ECB Proposes to Repeal Penalty Schedules

The Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings’ Environmental Control Board (OATH ECB) is proposing to repeal its buildings penalty schedule, which consists of Buildings Penalty Schedule I and Buildings Penalty Schedule II. This schedule is found in 48 RCNY § 3-103, and contains penalties for violations of Title 1 of the Rules of the City of New York (RCNY) and Titles 27 and 28 of the New York City Administrative Code. At the same time, DOB is also proposing to enact a Buildings Penalty Schedule within its own rules, which will be located in 1 RCNY § 102-1.

The move to relocate the penalty schedules of each NYC agency with corresponding ECB hearings to each individual agency’s charter is being proposed to make the penalty schedules easier to find for the public and to remove OATH ECB’s need to approve proposed or amended penalties, which should speed up agency rulemaking.

Working with the city’s rulemaking agencies, the Law Department, the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, and the Mayor’s Office of Operations conducted a retrospective rules review of the city’s existing rules, identifying those rules that will be repealed or modified to reduce regulatory burdens, increase equity, support small businesses, and simplify and update content to help support public understanding and compliance. This proposed rule repeal was identified as meeting the criteria for this initiative.

The proposed rule is open for comments via email, fax, and mail, and an in-person session on Wed., March 29, from 10 a.m. through 11:30 p.m. You can submit comments to OATH ECB through the NYC Rules website at http://rules.cityofnewyork.us. You can email written comments to Rules_Oath@oath.nyc.gov. And you can mail written comments to OATH ECB, Attention: Simone Salloum, Assistant General Counsel, 66 John Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10038.