The defensive despot

From the Daily News:

Plenty of New Yorkers knew the Buildings Department was failing to protect them long before Bloomberg cracked down and pushed out former Commissioner Patricia Lancaster.

And many critics questioned the safety of demolishing the Deutsche Bank building long before Bloomberg went to the funerals of two firefighters who died there.

The Democrats who want to dethrone him, city Controller William Thompson and Queens Councilman Tony Avella, say Bloomberg is blind to other problems that New Yorkers see clearly - like neighborhoods handed over to developers and schools obsessed with testing instead of learning.

His defenders point out that Bloomberg has put city data online so anyone with a computer can see which agencies aren't measuring up. He really does ride the subway around town, and regular New Yorkers really do walk up to him with problems and complaints.

Yet in the recent battle over how to run city schools, he brushed away even the most well-intentioned criticism, dismissed every question about the statistics that support his claims, and accused anyone who questioned his plans of trying to hurt children.

Big Brother to watch DOB inspectors

Department of Buildings to keep tabs on inspectors with GPS units
BY BRIAN KATES
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Moments after being sworn in Wednesday, the city's new buildings commissioners vowed to fight department corruption by tracking inspectors with hand-held Global Positioning computers.

Mayor Bloomberg swore in Robert LiMandri the day after crane company owner Michael Sackaris was indicted for paying bribes to top city crane inspector James Delayo for 12 years. In March, after a crane collapse at E. 51st St. claimed nine lives, an inspector in Delayo's unit, James Marquette, was charged with faking a report that he had inspected the crane.

LiMandri, named acting commissioner after Patricia Lancaster was forced out in April amid a growing scandal, said a GPS device would have been able to determine Marquette's location. LiMandri said he would start issuing the computers by year's end.

The 5-pound gizmos will "talk remotely to our system through WiFi, and will pinpoint where the inspector is when he does that job," LiMandri said.

The devices, which record inspection details immediately, will be introduced in phases beginning with electrical inspectors. By 2010, they should be in use by all inspectors, spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said. Bloomberg said LiMandri's most important qualification "is his intense commitment to make safety the No.1 priority."

A Sunday at the St. Saviour's site

St. Saviour's is still not sold, despite a pending sale being used by the owner as the excuse for the forced rush in getting the church removed off the property. In the meantime, the construction fence permits have been renewed.

Hmm...Gad Ashoori...where have I heard that name before? Ah, yes...

Last year, in another nondisclosure deal, engineer Gad Ashoori signed off on plans without inspecting building supports that caused cracks in the walls of a Brooklyn restaurant.

In exchange for a $5,000 fine and a year's suspension of self-certification, Lancaster signed a Jan. 4, 2006, stipulation agreeing not to refer Ashoori's case to the state Education Department "or any other city or state regulatory agency."

The shady building industry characters always seem to find each other, don't they? And of course, this and this are still going on:

CONSTRUCTION CRACKDOWN

By SALLY GOLDENBERG, NY Post

June 13, 2008 -- In the wake of two fatal crane accidents and the abrupt departure of city Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, the city is requiring that details of all construction-related injuries and deaths be posted on the Department of Buildings' Web site.

And under a separate measure, the agency will have to alert the state to all disciplinary action taken against architects and engineers.

Each measure was unanimously passed by the City Council yesterday with the support of Mayor Bloomberg, who is seeking to quell a storm of criticism over a dramatic spike in construction-site deaths - 16 so far this year, compared to 12 in all of 2007.

"We're taking an important step forward today to improve reporting within the Department of Buildings, to improve information that the public has about the Department of Buildings, and to crack down on folks who act inappropriately and potentially misuse licenses that are granted by the state," said Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan).

The bill, which would take effect within four months, would mandate the Web posting of the number of fatalities, injuries and accidents at every construction site, the type of work under way at those locations and the violations issued.

Developers losing money due to crackdown

As construction safety becomes an increasing priority, building contractors and developers throughout the five boroughs are feeling the effects of the city's recent inspection crackdown in their wallets.

When work stops, costs don't

Industry experts say the multi-day or multi-week work stoppages that sometimes follow an inspection can cost a developer or contractor millions of dollars in loan interest payments, rental costs of machinery and lost labor. And now, after several high-profile accidents — including the East Side crane collapse that killed seven people in March — and the resignation of the Department of Buildings' commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, last month, the crackdown is likely to intensify.

Lots of buildings, not enough inspectors

There are nearly one million buildings in New York City, and more than 4,200 currently under construction, and it falls on the department to monitor them all.

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office in 2002, he promised to reform the agency, a 116-year-old institution that had been plagued by corruption and accused of incompetence. Despite some progress, a recent spate of fatal construction accidents, most prominently a crane collapse in March that killed seven, led to the resignation of the buildings commissioner, Patricia J. Lancaster, last month.

The excavation team, which was formed nine months ago, has conducted 2,772 inspections on 1,685 sites, forcing half of those with active excavation to stop work at least temporarily.

Conditions at some 300 sites were found to be so egregious that a full engineering audit was ordered. Only two passed, said Timothy D. Lynch, chief engineer of the excavations team.

Many of the problems his team found had to do with the unique nature of building in New York, a city with virtually no undeveloped space but constant demand for more.

From Cracks to Falling Cranes, a Big Job for Building Inspectors

Builders rip crackdown

BY STEPHANIE GASKELL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Minor violations are shutting down construction sites and costing contractors millions of dollars as the Buildings Department cracks down on inspections in the wake of the deadly East Side crane collapse, a new report has found.

A top industry group says the city is paralyzed by fear after eight people were killed when a massive crane fell in Turtle Bay on March 15, according to Crain's New York Business.

"These inspectors are all afraid of losing their jobs," Louis Coletti of the Building Trades Employers' Association told Crain's.

In April, there were 1,403 stop-work orders on construction sites in the city - nearly double the 785 issued in January. Construction workers and site managers told the mag they were shut down for minor paperwork technicalities.

Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri denied the city is going out of its way to slow down work sites.

"Some might argue that certain safety precautions aren't really necessary, but the law is very specific in the precautions that need to be taken," LiMandri told Crain's. "Development is very important to New York's future, but we are not going to compromise public safety."

LiMandri replaced Patricia Lancaster last month after a series of Buildings Department black eyes.

So far this year, 14 workers have died in eight separate accidents across the city.

Evacuations in midtown after FDNY, DOB visits

Two apartment buildings in Midtown were evacuated yesterday after the fire department was called in to check on a potential building collapse, officials said.

A construction project at 311 W. 39th St. apparently jeopardized the structure of the nearby buildings enough for officials from the city Department of Buildings, an agency recently roiled by the resignation of its commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, to call for the evacuations.

Midtown Buildings Evacuated After Collapse Report

"Intensive, in-depth assessment" of high-risk sites

Buildings Department To Access High-Risk Sites
By Staff Reporter of the Sun

One day after buildings commissioner Patricia Lancaster resigned, her replacement, acting commissioner Robert LiMandri, said his department would launch a $4 million "intensive, in-depth assessment" of high-risk construction sites in New York City. The Department of Buildings will bring in outside engineers to assess randomly selected sites with high-rise concrete operations, excavations, or crane operations in their construction. "This year we have seen an increase in accidents and injuries related to high-risk construction activities, and we must make sure that as construction activity in the City continues to increase, the Department's ability to hold the construction industry to higher safety standards keeps pace," Mr. LiMandri, said in a statement.

Hey Bob, in this city, they're all high-risk!

Lancaster resignation wrapup

New York Times:
For more than 200 years, the department has been plagued by allegations ranging from the dastardly to the absurd. Plumbing inspectors have been charged with taking bribes. Consultants have set up get-aways for influential councilmen. A deputy commissioner was once indicted for accepting an illegal gift of wine.

As the agency responsible for overseeing the roughly $12 billion in annual private construction in the city, the Buildings Department is clearly echt New York — at least as echt as the Police Department or the Fire Department, which, of course, have both had troubles of their own. What seems to distinguish Buildings from the others, though, is not the severity or frequency of the problems, experts say, but its ostensible invulnerability to reform.

Agency With a History of Graft and Corruption

Daily News:
The general consensus seems to be that the departure of Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster today, while a welcome development in many corners, is hardly going to make a dent in the myriad of perceived problems at the beleaguered agency.

DOB Problems Just Begun

Gowanus Lounge:
On Monday, Mayor Bloomberg said ""I don’t think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings’ performance." The statement was disingenuous at best and self-servingly cynical at worst. The construction boom and DOB's laissez faire attitude have happened under Mr. Bloomberg's watch and the placement of the agency under former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's purview for most of his administration symbolized the back seat that regulating building took to encouraging development. The city's worst kept secret for much of the last six years has been the fact that DOB was expected not to interfere in major ways with development. If this meant looking the other way while safety, work hour and other regulations were violated with impunity, well, that was a small price for one of the biggest building booms in New York history.

GL Analysis: Patty Lancaster is Gone, Now What?

Lost New York:
That statement, the oft-quoted "I don’t think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings’ performance," was weasely, back-stabbing, scapegoating, political double-speak at its worst. It was bottom-of-the-barrel stuff and anyone who's a student of the political art would recognize it as such. You can bet as Lancaster watched Mayor Mike utter that line on television, she was muttering "son of a bitch" under her breath. Bloomberg was plenty satisfied the Lancaster and the DOB—it was doing exactly what he wanted it to do, with as little money as he chose to give it—until its corrupt performance began to impinge on his image as an infallible leader.

Lancaster, the Scapegoat

The Real Deal:
Robert LiMandri, the first deputy commissioner for operations at the city's Buildings Department will head the department on an interim basis now that commissioner Patricia Lancaster, has resigned.

LiMandri, an engineer, has worked at the department since 2002 and oversees its enforcement and forensic work. Bloomberg spokesperson Stu Loeser told The Real Deal that LiMandri will manage the department with the mayor's confidence.

LiMandri tapped as interim DOB head

NYC Buildings Commissioner Resigns

NEW YORK -- The city's buildings commissioner resigned Tuesday, a day after the mayor said he was unhappy with the agency and the rising number of fatal construction accidents this year.

Patricia Lancaster, an architect who overhauled the city's 40-year-old building code and introduced several new rules to manage building safety, quit after six years on the job.

"I made this decision because I felt it was time to return to the private sector," she said in a statement. "I am proud of the groundbreaking work the department has done during my tenure to root out corruption, increase transparency, overhaul the building code and increase safety for workers and the public alike."

But her resignation comes after Mayor Michael Bloomberg took the unusual step of publicly singling out a city agency, saying Monday, "I don't think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings."

Thirteen people have died in construction accidents this year, more than the total for 2007.

Seven died in a crane collapse last month that leveled a townhouse and damaged several buildings around it in a residential neighborhood. Last week, Lancaster acknowledged at a public hearing that the department improperly approved a construction permit for the 46-story condominium that was being built there.

The department has been criticized before for ineffective inspections, including at a skyscraper fire last year that killed two firefighters near ground zero. The department inspected the former Deutsche Bank tower regularly but did not notice a months-old problem with the building's standpipe system that hampered firefighting efforts.

In March, Lancaster acknowledged that department officials failed to process paperwork that had declared a vacant East Harlem apartment building to be unsafe more than a month before it collapsed near a Metro-North train station.

Critics said the department has been a mess since the 1990s, when it created a "self-certification" system to streamline the permit process and drastically reduced its inspections staff. Lancaster has been credited for raising the number of inspectors from under 300 to more than 400 in recent years.

Lancaster, the first woman to head the buildings department, served two years as deputy commissioner for design and construction in the Department of General Services for Bloomberg's predecessor, Rudy Giuliani.

It only took 13 deaths (this year)

QC correspondent Shitty Hall here with Mayor Bloomberg:

After a sharp spike in fatal construction accidents and other problems at the city Department of Buildings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday he was not satisfied with the agency and was examining where mistakes had been made.

Amid a historic building boom in the city, 13 people have died in construction accidents this year, one more than the total for all of 2007.

``I don't think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings. Whether they've done everything they can or not is something I'm looking at.''

Bloomberg Not Satisfied with Agency after 13 Deaths

``And let me make it as clear as I can. Simply shrugging your shoulders and saying, 'Well, after all, construction work is a dangerous occupation,' is behavior that will not be tolerated from anyone.''

Speaking Monday at his regular news conference, Bloomberg acknowledged that construction is hazardous and that the building boom just increases the chances that things will go wrong.

``If there's more construction, it makes common sense that you probably have more accidents or mistakes made, but that's not an excuse, and I'm looking into it.''

The Daily News is reporting that his Building czar may get axed. This would be the first firing of a commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg's watch. Back to you, Crappy.

Thank you, Shitty. As Lancaster was not caught playing solitaire at her desk, I predict she lasts out Bloomie's term.

Chatty Patty

Height of absurdity
Daily News editorial

Whatever possessed Mayor Bloomberg to send Prof. Irwin Corey to testify before the City Council on Thursday about the fatal midtown crane collapse?

What? He didn't send that old master of gobbledegook, double-talk and nonsense?

What? That was Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster who talked in unintelligible circles about the construction project where the accident happened? Sure fooled us.

After stunning the hearing with the statement that the high-rise, designed to have 43 stories, should never have gotten a permit because it did not comply with zoning rules, Lancaster said that, actually, maybe, there were only technical violations.

And then she spewed the thickest of fogs as to what those might be.

Yesterday, it became clear why.

Pressed for explanations, the department fessed up to enormous screwups that may have given the developer the green light to build far higher than he is rightfully entitled to.

The tower, located on E. 51st St. near Second Ave., may be as many as 10 stories too tall for the zoning.

Whoops. Big, big whoops.

It turns out that the structure, much opposed in the neighborhood as an outsized monster, may be on a lot that's too close to Second Ave. to go up 43 stories.

And it turns out that a slice of the property is actually zoned for low-rise construction, not a skyscraper - perhaps barring a tower of this height.

And it turns out, according to the department, that the developer put terraces on the building that extend impermissibly over the adjoining lot.

The result is that the Buildings Department is staring at a whole lot of steel, concrete and glass that likely doesn't belong on E. 51st St. But it's there anyway because the agency gave the okay.

That has put officials in a position of trying to find a way to squeeze the building in under the zoning rules - rather than order the developer to tear some of it down. And risk having the developer file a claim against the city for his losses.

To describe Lancaster as embattled is to put things mildly. She inherited a mess of an agency and, despite some significant reforms, it remains a mess of an agency. Its many deficiencies are thrown into the spotlight every time there's a construction accident. Of which there have been far too many.

And now this.

Here's a humorous fictitious scenario courtesy of Lost City.

Lancaster admits DOB incompetence

The high-rise building under construction on the East Side where a crane collapse last month killed seven people did not conform with zoning regulations and was approved in error, the city’s buildings commissioner said on Thursday at a City Council hearing.

High-Rise Approved in Error Before Crash

Under direct and often withering questioning by council members at the hearing of the Housing and Buildings Committee, called to review crane safety and inspection, Ms. Lancaster said the building under construction had been approved “not in accordance with the zoning regulation.”

“Wow,” said Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin, whose district includes the site of the crane collapse. “You’re telling me this building should never have been approved in the first place?”

“That is correct,” Ms. Lancaster replied.

Later, in a clarification, the commissioner, Patricia J. Lancaster, told reporters that the Buildings Department should not have approved the building as proposed. But she left open the possibility that it might have been properly approved in a different configuration.

Time to hand in your resignation, Patty.

Buildings chief in the dark on emergency sites

BY BRIAN KATES
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Six weeks after after bungling led to the collapse of an East Harlem tenement, the city is still unable to give locations of similar buildings it has deemed dangerous.

The building at 102 E. 124th St. collapsed on March 4, weeks after the city had slapped it with an "emergency declaration" requiring immediate repair.

Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster then promised a review of "every outstanding emergency declaration in the city."

As of Wednesday she could not provide the location of even one.

Department spokesman Kate Lindquist confirmed emergency declarations have been slapped on buildings throughout the city, but she couldn't provide even an approximate number.

No one was injured in the E. 124th St. collapse, but trains on nearby Metro-North tracks were shut down through rush hour for fear vibrations could affect neighboring buildings.

Afterward, Lancaster vowed that her department would "take appropriate measures - including disciplining anyone who did not do their job." Lindquist refused to say whether anyone has been or would be disciplined.

"The review of the outstanding emergency declarations is underway, and we will make the results of the review public in the next few weeks," she said.

Scaffold safety lax

From the Real Deal:

A citywide inspection sweep of several city construction sites found 28 percent of supported scaffolds and sidewalk sheds violated safety codes, Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster said. Out of 1,654 inspected sites, 44 percent of the violating sites had safety-related issues, including improper installation or improperly braced scaffolding. The inspections were part of the Building Department's Safety Analysis and Field Evaluation Scaffold and Shed Initiative launched in February. Violations were issued to 459 sites, and 210 sites were issued stop-work orders.

A 'must read' from the Village Voice

Since the crash, the buildings department has raced to strengthen some of its procedures. Last week, the agency announced that inspectors must be present when tower cranes are raised. Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster issued a carefully calibrated vow to shut down any crane "operating in an unsafe manner in violation of applicable requirements."

But we expect no less of city government when innocent citizens are slaughtered while sitting comfortably in their apartments. And while the crane horror adds a whole new dimension to the problem, this is hardly the first time the building surge of the past few years has prompted public fear and rage.

For all its economic benefits, the boom has turned vacant lots and demolition sites into battle zones across the city. The weapons of assault are backhoes, bulldozers, and piledrivers. And while many local elected officials have tried to respond to panicky constituents, the complaints have generally prompted little more than snickers at City Hall.

There, the dominant attitude remains the Doctoroff Doctrine—the policy espoused by ex–deputy mayor and still top Bloomberg economic adviser Daniel Doctoroff: The more building the better, and don't sweat the small stuff.

City Hall Ignored the Hazards of the Building Boom

Essentially, current buildings-department regulations create a race between aggrieved citizens and corner-cutting developers: Neighbors have to muster all their energy to stop illegal work, while builders try to outrun them, getting foundations in the ground and walls up before anyone throws a red flag. Then the developers' lawyers go to work, arguing that so much money has already been expended that civic decency should allow them to continue.

Controlling cranes

Today, the New York City buildings commissioner, Patricia J. Lancaster, announced changes to the Buildings Department’s inspection protocol for tower cranes, the type of crane involved in the accident at 303 East 51st Street on March 15, which killed seven people and injured dozens of others. “Until further notice,” the Buildings Department announced today, a city inspector must be present on a construction site whenever a tower crane is raised or lowered.

City Announces Changes to Crane Inspections

Starting today, before giving approval to raise or lower a tower crane, the Buildings Department will require the engineer of record to conduct a full inspection of the crane and certify to the Buildings Department that it is built according to the approved plans and to provide a written protocol for workers to “jump,” or raise, the crane. The written protocol must incorporate the manufacturing guidelines and site-specific details of installation. The department will also require the general contractor to convene a safety meeting that will include the licensed rigger, the crane operator and the jumping crew.

“Until further notice, a buildings inspector must attend these safety coordination meetings to ensure that all safety measures are being taken,” Ms. Lancaster announced.

See Where the Cranes Come Home to Roost

City: Inspector faked crane site paperwork

Seven dead, 24 injured in collapse
Eyewitness News Team

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A New York City buildings inspector is accused of falsely claiming he inspected that crane that collapsed on the East Side, killing seven people. Now he is facing charges.

His arrest was announced at a news conference Thursday afternoon by Building Department Commissioner Patricia Lancaster.

At the news conference, city officials said that inspector Edward Marquette admitted to the Department of Investigation that he did not inspect the crane, although he claimed to have done so on March 4th, days before the deadly collapse.

He was charged with falsifying a business record and offering a false record.

Avella calls on Lancaster to resign

The commissioner said that the spate of recent high-profile accidents partly reflected a building boom in the city. "We're issuing approximately 78,000 permits per year and construction is all over the city, so the number of incidents, the percentage, is relatively small," she said. "I think citizens can feel safe with construction in their areas."

Crane Collapse Ups Pressure On Buildings Commissioner

Ms. Lancaster has already drawn the ire of city tabloids, with the Daily News penning a series of editorials in recent months criticizing Buildings Department officials as "incompetent" "boneheads" and writing that "the department, led by Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, lost control of safety standards" and is a "dysfunctional mess."

According to city statistics released last fall, 29 laborers died in work-related accidents from September 2006 to September 2007, a 61% increase over the previous year. The number of safety violations at high-rise construction sites also nearly doubled between November 2006 and November 2007. The city has been undergoing a historic construction boom.

"This is just the latest incident," Mr. Avella, who called for Ms. Lancaster's resignation previously after a fatal accident at the Trump SoHo construction site, said yesterday. "How many people have to die before the mayor realizes that the Department of Building, which is ultimately responsible for construction in this city, is in total chaos?"

A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Stu Loeser, said Mr. Avella's resignation call was off base. "Such comments indicate a total lack of understanding of the situation, and we're not going to dignify such foolishness with a response," Mr. Loeser said.