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For Immediate Release: December 20, 2024
CONTACT: dobcommunications@buildings.nyc.gov, (212) 393-2126

NYC BUILDINGS DEPARTMENT “GETS STUFF DONE” IN 2024

DOB Made Great Strides Toward Promoting Safer Worksites Where Fatalities Are at a Near Decade Low; Creating a More Sustainable New York by Implementing Building Emissions Requirements, and Helping Clear Our City Streets of Obtrusive Sidewalk Sheds

New York, NY – As the year comes to a close, New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) Commissioner Jimmy Oddo today released a list of achievements completed by the department over the past calendar year, which best highlight the agency’s commitment to facilitating development and promoting public safety across our city’s 1.1 million buildings and more than 40,000 construction sites. DOB is doing its part to Get Stuff Done and we want to highlight just some of the work we’ve been doing.

“From day one, our administration has focused on creating a safer, more affordable New York City. In 2024, we continued to deliver on that vision and ‘Get Stuff Done’ for working-class New Yorkers,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Thanks to our extraordinary public servants, America’s safest big city got even safer this year, with overall crime down and thousands of illegal guns, mopeds, and ghost cars taken off city streets. We passed historic legislation to turn New York into a ‘City of Yes,’ shattered affordable housing records once again, and put billions of dollars back into New Yorkers’ pockets. We broke records for the most jobs and small businesses in city history and moved millions of trash bags off our sidewalks and into containers. But we know that there is even more we can do to continue to uplift working-class families. As we look to the future, our administration remains committed to keeping New Yorkers safe and making our city more affordable for the millions of New Yorkers who call our city home.”

“I’m exceptionally proud of our Buildings Department team and the services they have been diligently providing to keep New Yorkers safe,” said DOB Commissioner Jimmy Oddo. “From taking on the challenge of Get Sheds Down, strengthening worksite safety regulations, undertaking the challenging work of implementing Local Law 97, we’ve made strides toward a safer, more sustainable, and more livable New York. In 2025, we’re not slowing down, we’re committed to even bolder reforms, fostering cutting-edge innovation, and promoting code-compliant development that sets a new standard for excellence in our industry.”

Just some of the highlights from DOB’s 2024 Get Stuff Done achievement list include:

Inspections Are Up, Violations Are Down: The department broke another record in the last fiscal year, conducting a record 416,290 of inspections throughout all five boroughs. That is the highest number of inspections conducted by the department across all of our various units since we began tracking this metric. Despite increasing our presence out in the field, the total number of OATH violations issued by building inspectors are down compared to the previous year. Combined with decrease in work site injuries, these two metrics are an indicator that the construction industry has greatly improved compliance with city rules and regulations. The bottom line is that we want contractors and building owners to keep their sites and properties safe and code-compliant.

Improving Worksite Safety: Thanks to the Adams administration’s efforts, New York continues to be the safest big city in the country and our building construction industry has contributed to that with reduced work site incidents. To date, building construction-related injuries are down in 2024 by over 31 percent compared to the same period of time in 2023. Construction work site incidents are down 29 percent, and building construction related fatalities are down 14 percent. These major improvements in work site safety coincide with department initiatives including mandatory safety training for workers on larger construction sites, enhanced in-person supervision requirements for site safety professionals, proactive unannounced field inspections by agency inspectors, and a commitment to education outreach. This year DOB also expanded the city’s crane operator licensing requirements to articulating boom cranes, mini cranes, and rotating telehandlers, making New York City the first city in the country to increase oversight for these newer types of machines by requiring the operator to be licensed – putting more eyes on who is operating these machines.

Promoting Safety Training: The department’s mandatory Site Safety Training (SST) program for construction workers on NYC’s larger and more complex work sites is a key element of the city’s efforts to make construction sites safer across the five boroughs. The program requires workers to obtain an SST identification card, indicating the successful completion of at least 40 hours of safety training, in order to enter a work site. As of today, over 430,000 workers have obtained SST cards, representing over 18,437,000 hours of life-saving multi-lingual safety courses provided by our approved course providers. The cards have an embedded Near Field Communication (NFC) chip that can be scanned with a smart phone to confirm their validity, and track who is stepping foot on a construction site. These SST cards out in the field have already been scanned, or “tapped” a combined 24,277,000 times.

Battling Industry Fraud: In 2024, DOB cracked down on bad actors who were trying to sell SST cards, without also providing the appropriate safety training. In collaboration with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and NYC Department of Investigation, DOB pursued criminal charges against a private training provider, Valor Consulting, for selling SST cards without providing training. This company’s status of an approved safety training provider was revoked, and the department invalidated 20,000 fake SST cards previously issued by the company. Also in 2024, DOB also introduced the “Worker Wallet”, a single smart identification card that consolidates multiple existing worker cards used by workers in specialized roles on the work site like scaffold workers and riggers. Modeled after the highly successful SST cards, the Worker Wallet packs convenience and fraud prevention security with an NFC chip that verifies all qualifications on the spot. Since its implementation in November, training providers have issued over 8,300 Worker Wallets with one or more worker certifications.

Going on Offense: In an effort to prevent building collapses and major construction incidents from happening in the future, the department announced the creation of a new proactive enforcement initiative focused on inspecting buildings that have been allowed to fall into disrepair by negligent owners and bad actors within the construction industry. This initiative will be supported by several units that will be tasked with utilizing predictive analytics to identify derelict buildings and unsafe contractors, in order to take appropriate proactive interventions in the interest of public safety before a major incident occurs. This initiative was made possible through the passage of new legislation by the City Council and a significant investment of $5 million from the Adams administration, which includes creating 60 new positions consisting of Predictive Analysts, Inspectors, Attorneys and Engineers that the department is actively hiring for.

Getting Sheds Down: Since launching the Get Sheds Down initiative in July 2023, the department has made major progress on implementing this multifaceted effort to improve the public realm by compelling building owners to complete building repairs so unnecessary sheds can be safely removed, while improving the design of existing sheds still needed to protect public safety so they are less of an eyesore. A total of 6,919 sidewalk sheds that were up in July 2023 have since been removed from across the five boroughs, including 309 long standing sheds, that previously stood in place for over five years. The removal of these sheds coincides with “Get Sheds Down” initiatives targeting long standing sheds, including increased proactive outreach, enhanced enforcement scrutiny, and the filing of court actions against properties – more than 100 separate properties have been brought into litigation with the city related to this initiative. The city is leading by example, working to remove some of the oldest sidewalk sheds in front of city-owned properties, including the oldest city-owned shed that was previously in place in front of the Chief Medical Examiners Office in Manhattan. The department has also started major studies to reevaluate the city’s façade inspection laws, analyzed the financial effect on businesses located underneath sheds, and create brand new designs for sidewalk sheds, to modernize both the regulations and the equipment we use for pedestrian protection.

Parking Structure Safety: The city has strong code requirements in place for parking structures, a particular building type that is subject to a significant amount of wear and tear and requires more regular maintenance. In 2024, the department ramped up enforcement actions against parking structure owners who have failed to submit required safety inspection reports in this first compliance year of the city’s Periodic Inspection of Parking Structures (PIPS) program. DOB is issuing violations and monthly penalties to parking structure owners who have failed to comply with this important public safety requirement in order to compel compliance. In December 2024, the department initiated proactive enforcement sweeps of garages that have yet to comply by filing required reports, which could potentially lead to department-issued vacate orders. To allow the public to track the status of these parking structures around the city, and whether they have filed required these reports, the department also created two interactive maps for PIPS reports and Initial Observation Reports.

Reducing Carbon Emissions: In 2024, the department continued to take major steps toward implementation of Local Law 97 – the city’s landmark sustainability law that places limits on carbon emissions from the largest buildings. In order to help NYC achieve its ambitious climate goals, DOB developed LL 97’s third major rules package and partnered with NYC Accelerator to conduct outreach, create webinars, attend forums, provide training, and support owners as they determine the best compliance pathways for their buildings. The Bureau of Sustainability is gearing up to accept the first compliance reports for LL97, which are due May 1, 2025!

Supporting Sustainable Affordable Housing: To ensure equitable decarbonization for affordable housing, the department created the GreenHOUSE fund, in coordination with our partners at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ). The program will provide a pathway for building owners to comply with LL97 by purchasing offset credits that are used to electrify affordable housing developments that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford those types of projects. The GreenHOUSE fund will improve air quality in disadvantaged communities with disproportionately high asthma rates, reduce emissions citywide, and ensure that all of the health, climate, and economic benefits of this program are local.

Helping Owners Resolve Violations: Over the past year DOB has doubled down on efforts to help building owners resolve open DOB-issued summonses and keep their properties in safe code-compliant condition through the Get Summonses Corrected campaign. Spearheaded by DOB’s Administrative Enforcement Unit (AEU), this campaign combines virtual resources and numerous in-person events across all five boroughs to educate and guide the public in addressing open violations. Unresolved DOB-issued violations can make it a headache for a property owner to obtain a mortgage from a bank, obtain homeowners insurance, and even sell their property. A clean bill of health for a property helps owners avoid costly issues and compliance headaches. Through extensive outreach and innovative approaches to ease administrative requirements for those with open summonses, the Get Summonses Corrected team and AEU colleagues have successfully resolved more than 9,894 DOB issued summonses, 29 percent of which were classified as immediately hazardous. This initiative not only helps property owners, but also promotes public safety by remediating unsafe building conditions.

Fostering Construction Innovation: This year, DOB launched the all-new Innovation Review Board, a forward-thinking initiative to evaluate new technologies and practices that can enhance the city’s built environment. Comprising volunteers from the industry alongside experts from DOB and other city agencies, the board will convene regularly to explore emerging technologies aimed at improving efficiency, safety, sustainability, and resilience in construction and development. The most promising ideas will receive DOB support to encourage broader adoption across the industry. With the board serving as a formal platform for reviewing innovative proposals from construction professionals, it positions NYC at the forefront of industry advancements, ensuring a smarter and more sustainable future.

Embracing Cutting Edge Technology: This summer, DOB launched the inaugural Buildings Tech Lab — a groundbreaking collaboration with the Partnership Fund for New York City. Designed to bridge the gap between DOB and cutting-edge tech innovators, the initiative aims to streamline operations, harness data, and refine regulatory practices. Through an open call for applications, we are now working with seven private industry tech companies, giving them the chance to shine in a yearlong pilot program implementing their technology here at the agency, setting the stage for a smarter, more efficient DOB.

Offering One Stop Shop with NYC.ID: In June, DOB NOW integrated with NYC.ID, a single sign-in account that New York City is launching for all online services as part of the MyCity initiative. More than 6,000 customers engaged with DOB staff through training sessions, customer service channels, and videos. In just the first week of the launch, 36,750 users successfully logged into DOB NOW with an NYC.ID account.

Streamlining Online Licensing: The Licensing module of DOB NOW was expanded in October to include the following license types: construction superintendent, hoisting machine operator (included new limited licenses), lift director, and site safety coordinator/manager. DOB NOW: Licensing provides a streamlined application process for license applications, renewal submissions and other license changes and requests. As part of the launch, in-person and online training sessions were attended by 750 customers and more than 1,000 applications have been submitted.

Updating Electric Code: Working with industry and city agency partners, the department completed a comprehensive update of the New York City Electrical Code — the first such update in over a decade. Approved by the City Council during a recent session, the code streamlines administrative processes and updates city regulations so they are more closely aligned with federal standards — while also modifying them to account for New York City’s unique built environment. The first revision of this code since 2011 includes enhanced safety standards, requirements to support implementation of electrical vehicle charging, the facilitation of fossil fuel phase-out, and extending the license term for electricians, to name a couple of the toplines. The new code will also improve safety in our built environment, and support the city’s sustainability efforts including the move towards electrification and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The Electrical Code is the latest update in the department’s continuous efforts to refine the Construction Codes and meet the needs of an ever-evolving city. Meeting those needs includes developing new codes. Keep your eyes peeled for the first-ever New York City Existing Building Code, which will streamline the regulatory framework for alterations to existing buildings - making it easier for owners to renovate their buildings.