City Comptroller Audit Finds DOB Failed To Fully Implement Crane Safety Report

In four years, Buildings has enacted eight of sixty-five safety recommendations after spending $5.8 million on a study. On November 7, 2014, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer released an audit finding the Department of Buildings has failed to act upon recommendations for crane safety that came from a report they commissioned, four years after the report was issued.


Proposed Development Neighboring Silk Building Now Before City Council [Update: Council Land Use Committee Approves Unanimously]

 

New NoHo mixed-use development faced continued opposition from neighboring Silk Building residents during Council public hearing.On March 18, 2014, the City Council Land Use Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a public a hearing for a special permit application by Downtown Re Holdings LLC to build a mixed-use development located at 688 Broadway in the NoHo Historic District. The twelve-story, fourteen-unit building with non-eating and drinking ground floor retail is proposed to … <Read More>


City Planning Commission considers new nine-story building in Tribeca East Historic District

Developer had already obtained Landmarks’ approval for building at 83 Walker Street in June 2011. On May 9, 2012, the City Planning Commission is reviewing Abra Construction’s proposal to build a nine-story residential building on a vacant lot at 83 Walker Street in the Tribeca East Historic District. The narrow, nine-unit building would be 100 feet and 11 inches tall with no setback. The lot’s C6-2A zoning regulations limit the maximum base height … <Read More>


Audit faults Buildings on self-certification program

Comptroller found that Buildings did not audit requisite percentage of professionally certified building permit applications. City Comptroller John C. Liu issued an audit report on Buildings’ compliance with its rules governing the internal auditing of professionally certified building applications. The audit found, among other things, that Buildings audited a “significantly lower” number of applications than required, and that Buildings’ borough offices in Brooklyn and Queens failed to fully review certain audit applications.

The professional certification … <Read More>


Council Member Jessica Lappin on Landmarks, Public Siting, and Site Safety

Council Member Jessica Lappin represents Community District 5 in Manhattan, which includes parts of Midtown and the Upper East Side. She also chairs the Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting & Maritime Uses. A New York native and graduate of Stuyvesant High School and Georgetown University, Lappin was raised in a landmarked house in Gramercy Park. Well-regarded by preservation advocates, she has garnered accolades from the Friends of the Upper East Side and the Historic … <Read More>


Local laws aim to increase construction safety

Workers must complete construction safety course; concrete safety manager must supervise large projects. On August 14, 2008, the City Council passed two local laws intended to increase construction site safety.

Intro 790-A requires that a site safety plan include a statement that all workers, within the five previous calendar years, have completed a site safety course approved by either OSHA or by the Commissioner of DOB. The new law also requires that all workers receive … <Read More>