Citywide facade inspection enforcement sweep begins this month.
The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) has announced an inspection enforcement sweep throughout the city starting this month as part of their Facade & Scaffold Safety Blitz campaign. Over the course of seven weeks, DOB inspectors will be checking 1,100 facade repair work sites to verify site safety and compliance with city regulations.
The safety campaign also includes direct educational outreach to construction workers and industry professionals on scaffold safety in response to the tragic death of a construction worker in Manhattan last summer. Facade work safety information will be distributed during field inspections of facade work sites and through direct mailings.
In addition to the current blitz, the DOB's Facades Unit regularly performs sweeps to ensure that buildings filed as Unsafe under the Facade Inspection Safety Program (FISP) have installed public protection. Inspectors also examine scaffolds to check that they have been installed properly and to code.
Citywide inspection enforcement sweep of facade site work begins this month.
FISP 9th Cycle Changes
Owners should be aware that the DOB has made substantial amendments to FISP for the 9th Cycle, which began February 21, 2020. The most significant changes include additional hands-on inspections, probe investigations of cavity wall facades, requiring the display of a facade condition certificate in building lobbies, and increased and new civil penalties for non-compliance.
The DOB has also doubled the size of their Facades Unit and increased the frequency of DOB follow-up inspections of known Unsafe facades.
The current safety blitz and recent changes are part of an effort by the DOB to increase safety and hold negligent building owners accountable for not properly maintaining their building facades.
Request a Proposal
FISP Sub-Cycle 9B began yesterday, February 21. Owners of NYC buildings taller than six stories with block numbers ending in 0, 7, or 8 must have their facades inspected and a report filed within the next two years. If you would like a consultation or a proposal from RAND to conduct a facade inspection for your building, and/or to design and administer FISP repair work, please contact us at 212-675-8844 or FISP@nullrandpc.com. For more on New York City's Facade Inspection Safety Program, please see our FISP Fact Sheet.
We look forward to helping your building achieve a Safe filing status.
