City of Rochester FOIL Request: Fees, Response Time, and Appeals

You can file a City of Rochester FOIL request by sending a written description of the records you want to the city’s Law Department, either through the online portal at rochesterny.justfoia.com or in person at City Hall, Room 400A, 30 Church Street.¹ New York’s Freedom of Information Law presumes that government records are open, and you do not have to explain why you want them.²

Where to Send the Request

Rochester accepts FOIL requests through the Law Department by three main routes:

Online through the JustFOIA portal at rochesterny.justfoia.com, which also lets you track the status of your request.¹
In person at the Law Department, Room 400A, 30 Church Street, Rochester, NY 14614. Records are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For accident reports, in person at the Accident Records unit at the City Public Safety Building. If you are not the victim or the reporting person on a police record, you need a FOIL request to get a copy.³

Whichever channel you use, the date the Law Department receives the written request starts the statutory response clock.

How to Describe the Records

The law requires that your request “reasonably describe” the records you want.⁴ A sweeping request like “all records related to the police department” will usually produce a denial or a long delay. Something like “all incident reports filed in the 14607 zip code between January 1, 2025 and March 31, 2025” gives staff enough to work with.

Details that help staff find what you’re asking for include:

A specific date range.
The department you believe holds the record. If you aren’t sure, describe the record itself precisely and the city should route it.
Street addresses for property, building, or zoning records.
Case or report numbers for police documents.

State how you want to receive the records. Email delivery is usually the cheapest option, and when records already exist in electronic form you can request them that way and skip per-page copying charges altogether.

You do not have to give a reason for the request. The one narrow exception: if you ask for a list of names and addresses, the city can require you to certify that you will not use the list for commercial solicitation or fund-raising.⁴

What You Can and Cannot Get

Records commonly released by the City of Rochester include City Council meeting minutes and resolutions; building permits, zoning certificates, and development files; annual budgets, property assessments, tax records, and spending reports; professional service contracts, bid documents, and employee salary data; and police accident and crime reports.⁵

Section 87(2) of the Public Officers Law lets the city withhold or redact records in specific categories.² The exemptions that come up most often are:

Unwarranted invasions of personal privacy, including medical histories, employment applications, workers’ compensation files, and booking photos.⁴
Law enforcement records whose release would interfere with an active investigation, deny someone a fair trial, identify a confidential source, or reveal non-routine investigative techniques.
Records whose disclosure could endanger someone’s life or safety.
Trade secrets submitted by a business that would cause substantial competitive harm if released.
Records that would impair pending contract awards or collective bargaining.
Internal inter-agency or intra-agency memos, except for factual data, staff instructions affecting the public, final policy decisions, and external audits.

An exemption does not always kill the whole document. The city is supposed to redact exempt portions and release the rest, and the denial letter should identify which exemption applies to each withheld section. If it doesn’t, that’s grounds to appeal.

Fees

Paper copies up to 9 by 14 inches are capped by state law at $0.25 per page.² Oversized items like engineering drawings or large maps can be billed at the actual cost of reproduction.

Electronic delivery by email carries no reproduction fee. If you ask for records on a flash drive or similar device, the city can charge only the actual cost of the device. If the city produced an identical copy of the same record for someone else within the past six months and still has an electronic version, it cannot charge a reproduction fee at all.

When the city has to hire an outside service because its own equipment can’t handle the job, you pay the actual cost of that service. Expect a fee estimate before the work is done if the amount will be significant, and expect to pay before the documents are released.

How Long the City Has to Respond

Within five business days of receiving your written request, the Law Department has to do one of three things: produce the records, deny the request in writing, or acknowledge receipt and give an approximate date when the request will be granted or denied.⁴ For anything beyond a very simple request, expect the acknowledgment letter rather than the records themselves.

After the acknowledgment, the city has up to 20 additional business days to grant or deny access. If it still can’t complete the request in that window, it has to send a written explanation and a specific further date, which must be reasonable given the volume and complexity involved.⁶

If the city misses its own stated deadline without explanation, the request is treated as “constructively denied,” which gives you the right to appeal as though the request had been formally rejected.⁴ That rule prevents a request from stalling indefinitely.

What to Do If You’re Denied

You have 30 days from the date you receive a denial, in whole or in part, to file a written appeal with the Corporation Counsel.¹ Include a copy of the original request, a copy of the denial, and a clear explanation of why the records should be released. The denial letter itself should spell out the appeal instructions.

The Corporation Counsel then has 10 business days to produce the records or issue a written explanation for upholding the denial.⁴ Silence past that point counts as a denial, and you can move on.

If the administrative appeal fails, you can file an Article 78 proceeding in New York State Supreme Court asking a judge to review the city’s decision. You generally have four months from the date you receive the final denial to file.⁶ A court can order the records released if it finds the denial was not justified, though this route involves court costs and potentially attorney fees.

At any stage, you can also file a complaint with the New York State Committee on Open Government. The Committee issues advisory opinions on FOIL disputes. Those opinions are not binding, but agencies tend to take them seriously, and one can sometimes resolve the issue without going to court.

1
City of Rochester. Freedom of Information: City Records Access (FOIL)
2
New York State Senate. New York Public Officers Law 87 – Access to Agency Records
3
City of Rochester. Frequently Asked Questions – Rochester Police Department
4
New York State Senate. New York Public Officers Law 89 – General Provisions Relating to Access to Records
5
New York State Archives. New York Public Officers Law Article 6 – Freedom of Information Law
6
New York Committee on Open Government. Explanation of Time Limits for Response