The Law That Makes Your Landlord Get You AC (And the Trap Buried in the Fine Print)

What You'll Learn From This Post

• The Cool Homes for All Act (Int 994-A) requires landlords to provide cooling that keeps your bedroom at or below 78 degrees during cooling season (June 15 to September 15), once the outdoor temperature tops 82. But you can't formally request it until March 1, 2028, and full enforcement doesn't start until June 1, 2030.
• Landlords pay for the unit and the install. You pay the electricity. Miss the deadlines and landlords face penalties up to $1,250 a day, classified as a Class C violation, the "immediately hazardous" category.
• The trap: in rent-stabilized apartments, the landlord can convert the installation into a permanent rent increase through an Individual Apartment Improvement (IAI). The good news: they need your written consent first, and the actual dollar math is smaller than the word "permanent" makes it sound. I do the math below.
• If your apartment already came with AC, your landlord already has to repair or replace it. That duty exists right now. Don't wait for 2028 to fix a broken unit. Call 311.

I'm on the roof at Cherry on Top on Suydam Street, two blocks off the Jefferson L, holding a glass of whatever red they had open, which is turning to lava faster than I can drink it, by a table of people arguing about whether it's too hot to be outside. It is. We're all outside anyway. That's the whole city right now.

Priya materializes out of nowhere like a Weeping Angel. Priya does set design for a theater company in Ridgewood, which means she spends her summers in un-air-conditioned warehouses and has opinions about heat the way sommeliers have opinions about wine.

"So AC's mandatory now, right?" she says. "My landlord has to put one in this summer?"

I look at the sky. I look at her. I think about how many times I'm going to have this exact conversation before September.

"No," I say. "But also, kind of, eventually, in a Doctor Who way."

She blinks.

"You know how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside, and the timeline never goes in a straight line, and the thing you did in one episode doesn't pay off until three seasons later? That's this law. It looks like a phone booth. There's a lot more inside. And almost none of it happens this summer."

📜 What Int 994-A Actually Does

The Cool Homes for All Act became law on January 17, 2026, after it sat on the mayor's desk for 30 days and nobody signed it or vetoed it, so under the City Charter it became law anyway. The Council passed it, the mayor didn't touch it, and now it exists, like a houseplant nobody remembers buying. Nobody claims it. Everybody waters it. In four years it's going to be the biggest thing in the apartment.

Here's the actual standard. Landlords of market-rate AND rent-stabilized apartments have to provide and maintain cooling that keeps the room you sleep in at or below 78 degrees (with humidity capped around 50 percent), on tenant request, during cooling season. Cooling season runs June 15 to September 15. The duty kicks in once it's over 82 degrees outside.

It's the summer mirror of the heat law, the one from 1918 that makes your landlord give you heat from October through May. It took the city a century to notice that the other half of the year exists. Timey-wimey.

That's the headline. It's also where everyone stops reading, including, apparently, whoever writes the headlines.

⏳ The Timeline Nobody's Reading Past the Headline

Here's the part that ruins the rooftop conversation. You cannot formally request AC under this law until March 1, 2028. Once you request it and it's approved, your landlord has 60 days to comply. Full enforcement across every covered unit doesn't start until June 1, 2030.

So right now you're watching the July 2026 episode where the Doctor plants something in the timeline and tells you it'll matter later. If someone at a party tells you the city just mandated free AC for everyone, tell them they're describing a cold open that doesn't pay off for two more seasons.

"Two more summers," Priya says, fanning herself with the drink menu. "Cool. Love that for us." She doesn't.

When it does turn on, it has teeth. Failure to provide cooling will be a Class C violation, the "immediately hazardous" category, same tier as no heat in January, with penalties up to $1,250 a day. After 2030 you'll file complaints through 311, and an HPD inspector will come measure the temperature three feet above your floor and three feet from the wall, which is the most New York sentence in the entire bill. There's a hardship extension landlords can apply for, so expect some buildings to run out the clock even further.

The landlord covers the unit and the install. You cover the electricity to run it. (NYCHA is its own timeline: public housing is exempt from the installation mandate and instead owes a "comprehensive cooling plan" by January 2028.)

That part is simple. The next part is why I'm writing this down so that people can use it.

⚠️ The Rent-Stabilized Trap

If you're in a rent-stabilized apartment and your landlord installs a unit under this law, they can apply for a permanent rent increase tied to that installation. Not a Major Capital Improvement, which is building-wide with its own consent rules. An Individual Apartment Improvement, an IAI, and here's how it works:

• Buildings with more than 35 units: the landlord can add roughly 1/180th of the installation cost to your rent, per month, permanently.
• Buildings with 35 units or fewer: roughly 1/168th of the installation cost, per month, permanently.
• If your rent includes electricity: a separate monthly surcharge for the AC's power draw, on top, permanently.

Read that again. Not a one-time fee. A new, higher number on your rent-stabilized lease for as long as you live there, because you got an air conditioner you can't even formally ask for until 2028.

The city wrote a law to get you an air conditioner and buried a rent increase in it. That's not a loophole. That's the fine print doing exactly what fine print fucking does.

Now, before you barricade the door against the installation guy, here's your actual protection, and it's a real one: in an occupied apartment, an IAI requires your written informed consent, in your primary language, before it happens. The landlord can't install the unit and surprise you with a higher rent. You have to sign off on the improvement and the increase. The bill even makes HPD warn you about the rent consequences when you opt in, which tells you the Council knew exactly where the fine print was. The trap isn't the IAI itself. The trap is signing the consent form the way people sign terms of service.

And since I'm telling you to know the number, let's actually do the number. IAI increases are capped at $30,000 in costs over 15 years. A window unit runs maybe $300 to $600 installed: at 1/180th, that's about $1.67 to $3.33 a month, forever. A ductless mini-split, the fancy option, runs $3,000 to $8,000: that's about $17 to $44 a month, forever. So the real question isn't "is this a scam," it's "is sleeping at 78 degrees worth $3 a month to me, or $40." For a window unit, probably yes. For a building-wide mini-split retrofit priced at the top of the range, do the math against your own lease before you sign, because permanent means permanent.

This is the fixed point in time. The heat wave is the episode. The IAI paperwork is the season finale. When it shows up, read it before you sign anything, and if the math on it looks wrong, that's a rent overcharge question, and those are recoverable.

I'm not telling you to refuse the AC. Sleeping at 78 degrees instead of 90 is worth real money, and for a lot of people it's worth the increase. I'm telling you to know the number before you opt in, because the actual moment this law touches your wallet is not the moment anyone's talking about on this roof.

✅ What You Can Actually Do Right Now

Two different things are true at the same time, and conflating them is how tenants get confused.

First: if your apartment already came with an AC unit or central air, your landlord already has to repair or replace it. That's an existing, enforceable duty under the warranty of habitability and your lease, and it has nothing to do with Cool Homes for All. Don't wait for 2028 to fix a broken unit you already had. Call 311, document everything, and if HPD won't move, that's what repair cases are for.

Second: the 78-degree standard, the formal request, the enforcement mechanism, that's the 2028-2030 rollout. You can't file a request under this specific law yet. Anyone telling you otherwise is reading the headline and not the bill.

And if your landlord is already citing this law to justify a rent increase, this summer, before anyone can even opt in? That increase isn't riding on Int 994-A, and it definitely didn't come with the written consent the real thing requires. Get the paperwork and check what they're actually claiming.

🍷 Back on the Roof

Priya's still looking at me like I'm the new Doctor and she believes I somehow offed the last Doctor, but like... I'm all the Doctors.

"So basically nothing changes until I'm almost 30."

"But you were born in-", somehow it feels even hotter than before and I forget what I was saying. "Kind of. Except when your building does install units under this law, watch your lease like it's a season finale. The AC is the cold open. The IAI is the twist. And they have to hand you the script before you're in it, so read the consent form."

"That's the worst Doctor Who metaphor I've ever heard."

"The TARDIS is bigger on the inside, Priya. So is this bill."

She goes back for another glass. I go back to standing near the railing, because free legal advice on a roof in July is apparently my whole personality now.

This is general legal information, not legal advice for your specific situation. Every apartment is different. If you're facing a rent dispute, consult with an attorney who can review your actual circumstances.