Inside Third & Bond: Week 112
This week the Third & Bond bloggers get some tough news… One of our New Year’s Resoutions for 2010 was to be more patient: whether it’s walking behind slow people on the sidewalk or sighing loudly behind slow people in line, we are going to try and chill out a little. What’s another 30 seconds…
This week the Third & Bond bloggers get some tough news…
One of our New Year’s Resoutions for 2010 was to be more patient: whether it’s walking behind slow people on the sidewalk or sighing loudly behind slow people in line, we are going to try and chill out a little. What’s another 30 seconds here or there? Well our Resolution has already undergone a severe test beginning Monday, January 4, when we returned from vacation to find out Third & Bond has a Stop Work Order (SWO) currently in effect.
In the good ol’ days, SWO’s were handed out as the severe penalties they’re intended to be—primarily when there were material safety concerns on the jobsite. It’s a severe penalty since all work on the job has to cease: workers don’t have a job to go to and don’t get paid and owners sit around enduring painful delays.
Starting 3-4 years ago, particularly after the crane accidents around town, the Department of Buildings (DOB) starting handing out SWO’s like Halloween candy for the smallest of infractions or paperwork inconsistencies. It’s not so different than the photos of grandmothers being frisked at airports as a result of the Christmas bomber.
In the case of Third & Bond, there’s an important piece of paperwork called the TR-1 which is submitted to DOB in order to get a building permit. It identifies who is the responsible party to inspect each part of the project’s construction: the foundation, brick, fire alarm, etc. When the project is initially designed, and it’s not yet clear who the inspector is going to be, we identify the architects and engineers from the project to be the responsible party. As the construction starts, there’s a commonly-used process to substitute new inspectors in lieu of the architets and engineers. It should be a fairly simple process: submit paperwork that withdraws the initial inspector and at the same time submit paperwork that identifies the new inspector. We did this….in October 2008.That’s right, 15 months ago.
What’s happened since is an old, often familiar, DOB storyline. They scanned in the paperwork withdrawing the inspectors but lost the paperwork inserting the new inspectors. For those architects, expeditors and owners reading this blog, can you imagine such a thing, DOB losing paperwork? It happens on every job many times.
We returned….in November 2009 with new paperwork to scan when we realized the paperwork wasn’t shown in the system. No results. We returned in December 2009 with new paperwork to scan when we realized the paperwork wasn’t shown in the system. On December 28, a representative from DOB showed up at our jobsite and issued an SWO.
A stop work order is a curious penalty, that hasn’t since been explained to us, since there’s no concern about the safety of construction personnel or neighboring properties.
We’ve been trying to resolve the situation ever since. Eight business days and counting. Once an SWO has been issued, it’s always more complicated to have it removed. So we wait, no work proceeds, and our New Year’s Resolution becomes more at risk with each passing day.
Inside Third & Bond: Weeks 1-110 [Brownstoner]
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I understand your frustration. But I have little sympathy. Sometimes we have to pay for the sins of our fellow brothers. There were 19 construction deaths in 2008, 12 in 2007 and 18 in 2006. There were 3 deaths in 2009. !0,000 Stop Work Order Violations were issued. You, and I mean that in the industry in general, deserve the DOB.
I have seen first hand the damage “unrestrained” developers/contractors can do. My fellow Brooklyn neighbors and I BEGGED for a stop work from the DOB to prevent a foreseeable tragedy from happening. Unfortunately the Stop Work Violations were issued too late and 8 families lost their homes. Totally preventable.
“A safer construction site means a safer city,â€
“We have been working to change the culture of the construction industry – to put public safety ahead of profit – and our message is being heard. While the tough economic times have slowed down construction, more contractors, developers and licensed professionals are integrating safety into their practices, and this City is a safer place for it. Construction is critical to our economic future, but there is no reason why it cannot be done safely.â€
Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri.
I think I’ve read this story before.
In the next chapter someone turns into a cockroach, right?
I have my own special SWO purgatory on a manhattan project, so I sympathize. It is particularly difficult to get these things resolved as it usually involves the Borough commissioner.
– Jp
I’d write letters to your community board, M.Markowitz, Bloomie, etc. Maybe the Bklyn Paper too. Get some city gov’t going on it.
*hugs*
My friend Jimmy’s restaurant in the East Village was shut for a month by the DOB after passsing an inspection from teh Fire Dept. Jackals were probably looking for something under the table. A number of DOB employees were just indicted for extorting building owners in the Village, several had ties to organized crime btw…
rocketal, I feel your pain. My nonprofit has had much the same experiences although in a 6 month window of time.
The amount of my tax money being used to prop up these decrepit, anachronistic, bloated government institutions truly sickens me.
for once, you’ll get a sympathetic hearing in these parts.
just about everyone can agree that the dob screws things up regularly.
My church did some renovations 5 years ago and is still going through the process of getting a Certificate of Occupancy. They were almost there when the DOB made an error on the paperwork and made the church start over! The ineptitude of that agency is staggering. No wonder it costs so much to get work done in this city.