Elected officials and environmentalists rallied Friday with neighbors of northern Manhattan to call on Mayor Eric Adams to uphold Local Law 97.

The law requires most buildings over 25,000 square feet to meet new energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits by next year, with even stricter limits being implemented gradually until 2050.

“We are starting to hear more and more calls for exceptions, carveouts, delays, and lowering of targets. If we do that, we are not going to meet our goals for breaking our dependence on carbon energy in New York,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said at the rally Friday.

They touted the example of this working-class land marked building with 350 apartments in Washington Heights built in 1924 that has retrofitted its heating system and recently approved the conversion from window air-conditioning units to more efficient models for all its residents.

“If they can do it in Hudson View Gardens, any building can do it, and the city has ways to help — we have an accelerator which offers technical assistance, we have low-cost financing,” Levin continued.

“Washington Heights is an environmental justice community, one that is daily impacted by the pollution, by the climate crisis, and this building doing this today is just a simple, a model of working-class communities can do coming together to actually make an impact,” Manhattan Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa said.

Some of the concerns voiced at the rally as the city approaches the first deadline.

“The vacancy rates in our city agencies will not allow for enforcement to happen robustly,” De La Rosa said. “We need to make sure that we’re tackling that in this budget so that the agencies that are tasked with enforcing Local Law 97 have staff on hand to be able to do enforcement.”

“We need to have teeth in the law that will guarantee compliance, particularly not just from co-op owners, or middle-class people who are struggling to meet their goals and objectives, but those that own luxury buildings, commercial buildings that have the resources to comply with the law,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who represents Manhattan and the Bronx.

All buildings under Local Law 97 must submit a yearly emissions report that must be certified by a registered design professional on May 1, starting from 2025.

The city could start levying fines soon after emissions reports are due in the spring of 2025.