New York City Department of Buildings

With construction safety serving as the favorite punching bag for legislators of late, the City Council is putting together a torrent of new proposed regulations of the construction industry, with a hearing scheduled tomorrow for 12 bills.

Numerous members of the City Council have called for new steps to ensure safety at construction sites amid the building boom, citing the rising number of construction-related fatalities (13 so far this year, compared with 12 in all of last year), as evidence of need of reforms.  read more »

In the search for a new commissioner for the Department of Buildings, the Bloomberg administration wants to drop a requirement that the position go to a certified architect or engineer, a move that is being resisted by the city’s architectural advocacy organization.

“We feel very, very strongly that it should be withdrawn, that it’s ill considered—that I would even go so far to say hypocritical,” said Fredric Bell, director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “It has to be a licensed design professional—not someone who just has good management skills … they really have to know buildings as their business.”

The City Council will hold a hearing on Wednesday on the new legislation, which was brought forward by the mayor’s office.  read more »

The city’s commissioner of the Department of Buildings, Patricia Lancaster, today resigned from her post, more than five weeks after a major Upper East Side crane collapse killed seven people.

Ms. Lancaster, credited with overhauling and cleaning up a department noted for corruption, led numerous efforts to modernize the regulatory agency and increase penalties for developers as the amount of construction in the city soared.

But in the end, the building boom proved to be her undoing, as a number of high-profile deaths at construction sites in recent months brought on piles of public attention and numerous calls by lawmakers for her resignation.

Garnering the most attention was the crane collapse on East 51st Street, and last week, Ms. Lancaster acknowledged that the building of that size should never have been approved in the first place for that site.  read more »

Last year was one of the busiest years for residential development in New York’s recent history, with permits issued for 31,918 privately owned housing units, according to data from the U.S. Census. The city’s departments of Housing Preservation and Development and of Buildings announced the numbers today, saying 2007 saw the second highest number of housing-unit permits issued since 1965, when modern permit records began.

According to HPD, 2006 saw permits issued for 30,927 units, while 31,599 permits were issued in 2005.  read more »

It looks as though the Department of Buildings is stepping up oversight following the recent construction-related deaths in the city.

Today, DOB Commissioner Patricia J. Lancaster announced that the city is looking to hire 67 new employees for “special operations teams” with an eye on improving construction safety standards in the city. The move is part of the DOB’s Special Enforcement Plan that the Mayor unveiled with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Commissioner Lancaster in July.

In an interview with The Observer back in May, Ms. Lancaster spoke at length about bringing the city up to code.

The release after the jump.  read more »