American Bird Conservancy Letter to Council Members on Mayor Fulop’s Veto of Ordinance 25-123
View the full letter here.
December 9, 2025
Re: Mayoral Veto of Ordinance 25-123
Dear Council Members,
On behalf of American Bird Conservancy (ABC), I write to thank you for your ongoing leadership on sustainable development in Jersey City and to respectfully encourage your continued support for strong bird-friendly building standards. The Mayor’s recent veto of Ordinance 25-123 was grounded in several misunderstandings about how bird-friendly design works, how architects routinely meet these requirements in dozens of other cities, and the actual costs and design implications involved. We hope this letter helps clarify those issues and reinforces the feasibility and importance of including bird-friendly requirements within Jersey City’s development framework.
The veto frames bird-friendly requirements as a “specialty glass mandate” that must be added on top of an already-complete building design. In reality, the ordinance simply requires architects to design with bird safety in mind from the outset, just as they already do with fire safety, energy performance, and accessibility. When bird-friendly design is incorporated early, compliance can be achieved using cost-neutral and low-cost materials and strategies, many of which also improve building performance.
Bird-friendly buildings do not require specialty glass
Examples of cost-neutral compliance approaches include:
Exterior window screens, which already feature in many multifamily projects and meet bird-friendly standards without special glazing.
Solar shading devices, louvers, and exterior solar screens, which prevent collisions and reduce cooling loads, lowering a building’s operating costs for decades.
Fritted or patterned glass only where truly necessary, such as large untreated façade sections, representing a small fraction of total glazing, especially on multi-family housing units.
Limiting the use of glass reduces opportunities for bird collisions, decreases the amount of bird-friendly glazing needed compared to more heavily glazed façades, lowers construction costs given the high price of glass, and enhances overall energy performance, resulting in lower operating costs for tenants.
Retrofit films and markers can be factory-applied to glass before installation, offering a low-cost option for meeting bird-friendly requirements without changing the type of glass specified. Pre-installation application eliminates the need for onsite labor, significantly reducing cost.
None of these strategies require the “high-priced, specialty windows” referenced in the veto letter.
It is also important to note that bird-friendly glass is an area of active innovation, with many major manufacturers now offering competitively priced, attractive, and high-performance products that meet bird-friendly building standards. The market is expanding in response to growing demand from architects and cities nationwide, further reducing costs and increasing design flexibility.
Bird-friendly design will not slow or halt development projects
The veto asserts that these requirements will “slow down or halt otherwise viable projects in our pipeline.” There is no evidence from any jurisdiction with a bird-friendly building requirement that such laws impede construction starts, stall the development pipeline, or reduce housing production. Developers adapt easily because the requirements are predictable, performance-based, and incorporated early when design flexibility is highest and cost impacts are lowest.
Moreover, ensuring bird-friendly design at the outset helps avoid costly, disruptive retrofits if a building is later found to be killing large numbers of birds. Retrofitting after construction is far more expensive and time-consuming than incorporating simple design measures from the beginning. The ordinance therefore reduces long-term risk and cost for project owners and the City.
Affordable housing and bird-friendly design are compatible
In practice, Jersey City’s bird-friendly building ordinance ensures that all new buildings responsibly address a well-documented environmental hazard without undermining feasibility.
To our knowledge, none of the 23 cities and 5 states that have adopted bird-friendly building laws have reported that these laws caused housing production to stall. This includes New York City, where all affordable housing permitted since early 2021 has used bird-friendly design.
Voluntary approaches do not prevent window collisions
The veto letter suggests shifting to voluntary standards or incentives. However, ABC is not aware of any bird-friendly buildings that have been built due to the existence of voluntary guidelines in any of the municipalities that have invested the time to create and adopt them. Mandatory requirements, however, ensure that bird-friendly buildings are actually designed and built so that Jersey City can meaningfully address the conservation crisis of bird-window collisions.
Mandatory, performance-based standards:
Provide predictable, consistent expectations for developers.
Create a level playing field across the market.
Avoid the costs and inefficiencies of late-stage design changes.
The Council has the opportunity to provide clarity and leadership
The Mayor’s veto reflects a misunderstanding of bird-friendly design and an assumption that such requirements jeopardize housing production, which remains unsupported by data from any other city.
As the Council determines how best to move forward, we respectfully urge you to continue championing strong bird-friendly building standards that support both environmental responsibility and housing goals. ABC would be welcome the opportunity to meet with Council Members or planning staff to offer additional technical guidance.
Thank you for your leadership and for your attention to this important issue.
Sincerely,
Christine Sheppard, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Glass Collisions Program
American Bird Conservancy
