The former head of the Department of Buildings is aiming to help developers adapt to the city’s new building codes, which were implemented late last year.
Robert LiMandri, who ran the city's Department of Buildings for five years before joining architecture firm Vidaris last year, has established a new division within Vidaris that will focus on assisting developers clear the requirements.
Mr. LiMandri said the codes have created an extra hurdle for builders at a time when construction is booming and the Department of Buildings is backlogged with projects waiting for approval.
“There’s confusion about the changes,” Mr. LiMandri said. “It has become a lot more stringent.”
A big element of the new codes include making buildings safer, but these changes have had a direct influence on design. Developers constructing glassy high-end residential towers, for instance, have to design and install enhanced fire-protection systems to compensate for the bigger window lines, which can feed a blaze. Additionally, emergency elevators, which are used to evacuate a building in the event of a fire, require a special design that will properly ventilate smoke.
“More and more, builders are looking for experts to help them vet their designs” before handing them to the Buildings Department, Mr. LiMandri said.
Making sure that projects are approved expeditiously has become a major concern for developers, given the rising costs of land, building materials and labor. There is mounting pressure to quickly get through the construction process in order to alleviate carrying costs. Developers also want to complete their projects while the real estate market is still hot.
7 comments:
"Robert LiMandri, who ran the city's Department of Buildings for five years..."
Ran it...or ran it into the ground??? YOU decide!!!
LiMandri is one of the good guys. Be glad that someone is telling developers the correct way to do things.
DOB Plan Examiners certainly haven't a clue! Nor do the DOB inspectors with their blindness and ability to take bribes.
DOB has always been in the service of developers...either by accepting bribes for illegal work being done....dragging their feet responding to complaints.....or ignoring them completely.
DOB needs to be investigated. Wait a minute. That has not worked in the past. Everytime they catch a bunch of crooked building inspectors, five years later they are replaced by another batch.
All DOB employees should be spot checked polygraphed.
DOB is a wasp's nest of corruption. The only way to break up one of the most corrupt able departments in the city is to conduct surprise tests....lie detector tests!
This guy was a puppet and knew nothing about running DOB.
The building industry is far too mobbed up to be cleaned up by the city. Even DOI is powerless. A federal probe is needed here. Bribery, money laundering, extortion, tax evasion...is just the kind of thing the FBI loves to get its teeth into.
LiMandri has an MBA. He is neither an engineer nor architect. And he's going to help developers navigate more stringent safety regulations?
Hardhats will some become the accessory of choice for safety-conscious New Yorkers, not that it would help when a panel, or a crane, comes hurtling out of the sky (remember, under LiManri it rained cranes in NYC).
Who should know better how to get around DOB's rules than Bob Li Mandri?
They say that if a government agency wants to thwart crooks , hire one as an advisor. So it should follow, that if a crook wants to slip through a government loop hole, he should hire a former government specialist.
We are doomed! Now any shady developer has a friend from DOB whom he can pay for advice.
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