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The Standing-Obligation Stack

Visuals in this post: New Obligations Per Year The Standing-Obligation Stack Reports Due Every Year
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City Council August 2026

The Council's Standing Orders Never Retire

64% of the obligations the Council writes into local laws recur: an ongoing duty to enforce, operate, or maintain, or a report or review on a fixed schedule. A recurring obligation stays on an agency's books until a later law repeals it, which is rare. The result is a stack that only grows: 116 standing obligations from post-2014 laws at the end of 2014, 5,215 by August 2026.

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Standing obligations from Council laws have grown 45-fold since 2014
Cumulative recurring obligations created by NYC local laws enacted 2014–2026, by type of recurrence.
Ongoing duties (enforce, operate, maintain)
On a schedule (annual, quarterly, every N years)
Created by Tal Roded · NYCuriosity · Source: NYC Council Legistar via the Legislation Implementation Tracker

Nothing on this chart expires on its own. A one-time obligation (write one rule, install one sign) is done when it's done. A recurring one, an annual report, an inspection program, an enforcement duty, stays on the agency's books indefinitely. Every year the Council adds a few hundred more: 534 in 2025 alone.

This is the pattern Stanford's RegLab found in state law, where California's reporting requirements grew 400% from 2000 to 2025, and the pattern Governor Hochul's July 2026 "regulatory reset" order targets. The stack above is the New York City Council's version.

What counts as recurring: obligations the tracker tags with an ongoing recurrence (a standing duty to enforce, operate, or maintain something) or a fixed cadence (weekly through every-10-years). One-time obligations (2,967 of the 8,194 total) and 3 tagged as-needed are excluded. Obligations are dated by their law's enactment date; 9 recurring obligations without one are excluded.

Counts are as enacted: the tracker does not net out the small number of obligations later repealed or superseded by amendment, and laws enacted before 2014 are outside the data, so the true standing total is somewhat different in both directions. The 45-fold growth reflects accumulation, not a 45-fold increase in annual lawmaking.

Source: Author's analysis of NYC Council Legistar law text via the NYCuriosity Legislation Implementation Tracker (data as of August 2026).