It's not your mama's Department of Buildings anymore: Ways of doing business has changed

Today's Building Department is much different than the one your mother knew. Deutsche Bank, crane col­lapses, worker falls and fatalities have inspired the most radical industry changes in the last 40 years. Not only do we have a new building code modeled from the ICC, but the entire way of doing business has changed. DOB has moved away from a borough-based en­forcement effort to a more centralized functional en­forcement effort. Following more the "B.E.S.T. Squad" model that was developed in the second half of the '80s, DOB has set up special units to deal with the "high hazard" con­struction areas that have been defined through commit­tee study. Tasks forces on demolition, excavation/foundation, concrete and scaffold now comb the city during the relevant phases of construction. Taking more of an "engineering" based review, the DOB actually weighs in and analyzes and inspects the technical correctness of construction rather than accepting the P.E. or design professional opinion as gospel. The 421A push of 2008 saw the excavation and foundation unit require much more detailed adjacent property protection plans encompassing underpinning, shoring and sheeting, etc. that required detailed site specific means and methods rather than the typical, structural details that contractors put on their plans as a menu to be used as desired during construction activity. By forcing an actual "design" the contractor/design professional had to review the structural aspects of the adjacent property and its soils and plan and design for the construction operation in regard to the site's attri­butes. Also, the DOB enforced and expanded the 10/88 landmark monitoring directive to many jobs thus re­quiring detailed adjacent property surveys, vibration monitoring and crack monitoring during construction and surveying as the norm with weekly professional reporting to the DOB on "premise status." Periodic concrete activity inspections are now the norm with the formalization of a design function for shop drawings for shoring, forming and rebar and as­sociated inspections. This resulted in stop work orders and new plan preparation activity with revision and filing being a common occurrence. Some projects were even requir­ing a separate D14 filing and permit on these opera­tions to assign responsibility to the design professional and have the appropriate "job contractor" obtain a separate permit for the appropriate construction. Demolition, scaffold have also been a new venue as well as the changing face of safety compliance and filing and permit rules. Also changes to testing and in­spection requirements are on the horizon. Jane Webster is the vice president of compliance for Domani Consulting, Inc., Valley Stream, N.Y.