By Frank Fortino After months of consideration and deliberation, Mayor de Blasio officially announced his appointment for the next leader of the DOB – Commissioner Rick Chandler. I had the great pleasure of meeting Commissioner Chandler back in the 80’s when he first started as a plan examiner, and young engineer… View more
By Austin Regan We talked previously about the changes to Administrative code section 28-101.4.3 “Optional Use of the 1968 building Code for work on prior Code buildings.” One of the big changes was the removal of a cost threshold as the trigger point where Chapter 11 – Accessibility — must be… View more
By Renee Sosnowski While he’s no longer in power, Mayor Bloomberg finished his term with an interesting ECB law designed to incentivize action for violators. The law – Local Law 153 of 2013 (LL 153/13) – amended the Administrative Code to give those respondents receiving a first violation for certain provisions… View more
By Penny Laughlin After a long wait, the DOB has unveiled Code Notes, a new reference tool to assist the industry and property owners navigate through the Building Code, permit approval process and Zoning Resolution. During the project approval process, plan examiners typically raise objections when plans fail to comply with… View more
By Mario Aurioso Until recently, the only agency that could withdraw a Fire Alarm application that required an inspection was the FDNY. With a new procedure the DOB now also has this authority. Withdrawal of Fire Alarm applications usually points to two scenarios. First, the application may have been superseded by another application… View more
By Andrew J. Pisani By now we’re well versed in the facts of LEDs – they are energy efficient, they offer a variety of color ranges, and they will last for quite some time. If done correctly, a LED retrofit should bring immediate savings to a building, and continue without effort,… View more
By Frank Fortino Developers of new buildings and those conducting major alterations are hearing more from FEMA than they’re used to. Since Hurricane Sandy, FEMA has taken an active role in understanding, measuring and upgrading the City’s floodplains and elevations. Base flood elevations are used to determine the required elevation of… View more