DOB Can't Keep up With Building Boom
The Department of Buildings is overwhelmed by the number of filings for building permits and can’t keep up, reported The New York Observer. The City is taking almost twice as long to review first submissions of applications for new-building permits — an average of 15.7 days vs. 8.5 last year, according to a report from…
The Department of Buildings is overwhelmed by the number of filings for building permits and can’t keep up, reported The New York Observer. The City is taking almost twice as long to review first submissions of applications for new-building permits — an average of 15.7 days vs. 8.5 last year, according to a report from the Mayor’s Office of Operations. Alt-1 permits average 13.3 days, vs. 11.5 days last year.
The delays are costing big developers big money, said one of Brooklyn’s busiest architects, Gene Kaufman. One day behind schedule for a big project “costs $15,000 to $20,000 in expenses and $30,000 to $60,000 in lost income, depending on project size, so $45,000 to $80,000 a day,” he told the paper. Part of the slowdown can be attributed to code changes at the end of the year.
There’s also the building boom. Filings increased to 3,132 in 2014, vs. 2,549 in 2013. Permits issued increased 11 percent last year to 98,302, vs. 88,290 issued in 2013.
The building department is also down 16 employees, following recent arrests in widespread bribery schemes. The Building Department needs to hire more employees, said the story.
Have you had a problem? What do you think the City should do?
DOB Overwhelmed by Construction Demand [NYO]
You’d think typing in giganta font would help one spot typos easily.
Dont be a fool. Thanks to strict building codes NYC has a historic low of deaths due to fires carbon monoxide etc etc. And lower than the cities you mention.
Im sure if the life being saved is your daughters you’d talk differently.
Im not saying process should not be streamlined. To the contrary: Process must and should be reformed and streamlined, but many of the regulations and checks and balances save lifes.
Thats a paradox sort of… expediting applications fast but keeping up with the regulations that are life savers.
I hope both can be accomplished. But I dont see Deblasio as the ideal reformer of anything. Bloomberg did make a lot of advancement in online info of dob and hpd etc.
Another reason to reform and expedite-is because so much money gets lost by dob taking forever-that it invites wrongdoers into the dob scene…..
Last I heard, Italy and France weren’t cities.