Guidance for greenhouse gas emissions analysis and PlaNYC assessment among additions to manual. On May 17, 2010, the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination released the revised City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR) Technical Manual. The manual summarizes the City’s environmental review process and provides guidance on the analysis of potential environmental impacts from projects undertaken directly by the City, financed by the City, or that rely on permits or approvals from the City. The City published the first manual in 1993, and it was last revised in 2001. The updated manual’s applicability to ongoing environmental reviews is discussed in the document’s introduction.
The manual has been revised and reorganized and now contains screening and preliminary analysis tools. It reflects changes in the review process resulting from recent legislation and new methodologies. A chapter on greenhouse gas emissions has been added that provides guidance for assessing the impacts of direct and indirect operations, mobile source, and construction emissions. The manual’s Land Use, Zoning, and Public Policy chapter now contains a sustainability consistency assessment for large, publicly sponsored projects, which uses PlaNYC as a guide to define sustainability for the purposes of environmental review.
As part of the City’s effort to reduce waste, the manual will only be published online, and it is available for download at OEC’s website.
In addition to providing the 2010 manual online, OEC also created an online CEQR Calendar. The calendar provides the public with information about public scoping meetings, hearings, and comment periods for projects undergoing environmental review.
Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination: http://www.nyc.gov/html/ oec/html/home/home.shtml (last visited on June 9, 2010).