After being voted and passed by the City Council, New York City Local Law No. 92 of 2025 automatically took effect on the 12th. This bill cooperates with the two previous bills to further promote the responsibility mechanism to achieve the goal of increasing the number of public toilets in the city to 2,120 within ten years. In addition, another bill that took effect on the same day requires the authorities to add 50 public drinking water facilities to the city’s parks within ten years.
Local Law No. 92 was proposed by City Councillor Rita Joseph. The content updates Local Law No. 114 of 2022, which was proposed and passed by her three years ago, and refines and supplements Local Law No. 58 of 2025 proposed by City Councillor Sandy Nurse.
In combination with the requirements of the first two laws, the New York City government must review all postal code areas (ZCTAs) in the city, identify existing public toilets in the area, and find possible locations for new public toilets based on factors such as population distribution, zoning business types, and land use. According to the data of this “potential tapping” report, the City Council determined that the total number of public toilets in the city can be increased to 2,120, which is about twice the number of existing toilets. The latest legislation implements the above policy goals into a responsibility system, requiring the city government to report in detail the budget, construction period and funding use of all projects in accordance with the feasible projects listed in the “potential tapping” report.
In a statement, the proposer Joseph said that increasing public toilets is an important part of the strategy to improve the quality of life of citizens, and the purpose of this legislation is to increase the transparency and accountability mechanism of government administration in order to better promote this policy.
New York City Local Law No. 93 of 2025, proposed and passed by City Councilman Gale Brewer, also came into effect on the 12th. The law requires the City Parks Department to add at least 50 outdoor public drinking fountains in its jurisdiction by June 1, 2035, and each drinking fountain must be installed within 100 feet of the park entrance.
After the two bills were passed by the City Council in June, they were submitted to Mayor Eric Adams, but Adams did not sign or veto them. According to the New York City Charter, unless the mayor vetoes a new bill, it will automatically take effect 30 days after it is submitted.
