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Powers by Type

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Visuals in this post: Duties per power Types of powers New duties vs. staffing Powers and duties by year
data.nycuriosity.com › Legislation Trackers Update › Powers by Type
Substack post September 2026

Powers by what they let agencies do

Every power in the Powers tracker carries a type describing what it lets an agency do. This chart counts them across all local laws enacted since 2014.

Rulemaking makes up a third of the powers the Council grants agencies

The 1,706 powers in local laws enacted February 2014 to September 2026, by type. Share of all powers on the bar, count at right.

Source: NYCuriosity Powers tracker, local laws enacted Feb 2014 to Sep 2026. Note: The nine smaller types are notice or posting, database or data publication, plan or strategy (19 each), outreach or education (17), report, monitoring or testing (16 each), study or audit (15), training (11) and signage or installation (5). "Other" covers powers outside the tracker's categories, mostly waivers, approvals, determinations and powers to set the form of filings; 2 powers carry no type.

Rulemaking and enforcement or inspection together account for 924 of the 1,706 powers, more than half. Among the powers' own summaries, 88 mention inspection, 58 fees, 57 civil penalties and 38 license revocation.

Method: Each local law enacted since 2014 is read by Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic), and each provision is sorted as a duty or a power by the model's label and by a fixed rule in code. Counts as of September 29 2026. Full methodology.