As the building boom has progressed in recent years, it’s become painfully obvious that the building code the city has lived with since 1968 is woefully outdated. During his campaign in 2001, Mayor Bloomberg pledged that he would do something about it. Now he has. At the end of the day yesterday, the Mayor and DOB Commish Patricia Lancaster submitted their proposal to modernize the city’s building code by placing an emphasis on safety, technology and sustainability and bringing the way the city does business more in line with the rest of the country. If this massive revision to the City’s Building Code is approved by the City Council, outdated regulations that are unnecessarily complex and convoluted will be replaced. The international competitiveness of our City will be increased with new, streamlined Construction Codes that allow for the cheaper construction of safer and more environmentally responsible buildings. This proposal will make new construction less expensive and make it easier to build more affordable housing. Next stop: City Council, whose approval is needed.
Bloomberg Outlines Plan to Rewrite City’s Construction Codes [NY Times]
Bloomberg Unveils Building Code [NY Sun]
Mike Breaks the Code [NY Post]
Photo by Endira Udal