NYC building violations are classified by city authorities as unsafe building (UB) conditions.  Dealing with them can be both expensive and highly complex.  Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about New York City building problems.

1. How can I know if there’s a UB violation against property I own?

By checking the Department of Building’s website.  There, you’ll find the Buildings Information System (BIS).  Enter the property’s address.  If you see the UB designation in the results, then a citation has been issued against it.

2. How can I have a UB violation dismissed?

This can be done in one of two ways.  If the citation is correct, then you must complete the necessary modifications or repairs to remove the violating conditions and then have the property re-inspected.  On the other hand, if you believe the citation to be in error, then you can contact the Department of Building’s website in the borough that the property is located in to request a re-inspection.  If the citation is found to have been issued in error, it will be removed.

3. I’ve heard the term “survey” used in regards to UB violations.  What does it mean?

A survey is an on-site inspection of the property under investigation to determine if it is in violation of city codes.  The survey is conducted by a Department of Buildings inspector, who is accompanied by an independent engineer or architect.  A report is then prepared describing the unsafe conditions, if any, and outlining recommended methods for correcting them.  The property owner is normally assessed a $100.00 fee to cover the costs of the survey.

4. I am currently doing work on a property I own and have received a Notice of Survey and Summons.  Is there any way I can get this action cancelled so that I can resume construction?

You must first correct the conditions that led to the UB violation being issued in the first place.  Once this is done, you may contact the Department of Buildings office in your borough to arrange a re-inspection.  You must also pay the fee for the survey, if one has been assessed.

5. What is a “Lis Pendens?”

Also known as a Notice of Pendency, this is a public notice of the UB violation and any court actions pending against the property and/or its owner.

6. How can I cancel a Lis Pendens?

You must correct the conditions that led to the UB violation and pay any survey or other applicable fees.  After this is done, you can request that the county clerk of your borough cancel the action.

7. I have received a Notice of Survey and Summons for a property I neither own nor have an interest in.  How do I get it dismissed?

Contact the UB enforcement unit in your borough and advise them of these facts.  You may need to prove that you do not have ownership of, or interest in, the property in question.

8. What is a “precept?”

A precept is an order issued by a court.  It authorizes the City to perform the work needed on your property to remove the UB violation.  If this occurs, you will be liable to the City for the cost of the work.

9. What can I do if I wish to do the work to correct the UB violation myself, instead of allowing the City to perform the work for me?

You must contact the commissioner of the borough in which the property is located to make this request.  Be prepared to prove that you are able to do the work and have applied for the proper permits to do so.  The commissioner’s office will decide whether or not to grant your request.

10. How can I avoid hassles like these in the first place?

By contacting Burnham Nationwide first.  Our staff of experts can advise you on all matters pertaining to NYC building violations, including zoning variances, getting permits approved, and handling disputes.  Get in touch with us today!

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One of the biggest contributors to humanity’s carbon footprint is housing.  By 2020, 60% of Earth’s human population will live in highly concentrated urban areas, which are notorious for straining natural resources and contributing to global warming, yet only 1/8 of the planet’s surface is suitable for people to live on.  The rest is ocean, deserts, and mountains.  Adding to this dilemma is the fact that civilization is already crowding out both agricultural lands as well as wildlife habitat. This is an environmental time bomb that is ticking ever louder.  A contest inspired by the tiny home movement may be part of the answer, however.

The Tiny Home Movement to the Rescue

One way to combat this problem is to reduce the size of the average home.  In the 1950s, the typical American family lived in about 1200 square feet.  That has doubled in the decades since to almost 2400 square feet.  In many cases, much of that space is wasted.  A common issue among homeowners is what to do with the “spare” bedroom or the “extra” family room.  Most often, these unneeded areas are used as storage space for items that could be sold, donated, or recycled, yet every inch of it adds to the home’s impact on the environment, through the extra materials used, and the energy needed to alternately heat or cool it.

In response to this growing problem, many people are going in the opposite direction.  They are purposely choosing to partake in the tiny home movement.  Singles and couples are finding that as little as 100 square feet is enough for them to dwell in quite happily.  Entire families share homes that take up 500 square feet or less.  These ecologically sensitive people use a variety of ways to buy or build structures that are cozy, energy-efficient, and have minimal impact on the earth, all while complying with housing codes and laws.

Tiny Houses Go Urban

One of the limitations of this approach has been the fact that large cities have traditionally discouraged the construction of smaller-sized green homes.  New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is working to change this fact.  “Developing housing that matches how New Yorkers live today is critical to the city’s continued growth,” he said in a recent interview.  “People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable, and innovative to meet their needs.”

City Zoning Requirements Waived

Bloomberg recently announced a contest to design micro-apartments to accommodate the city’s growing population of single and single-parent households.  The competition will put designers and builders in competition to develop a plan for a housing complex made up of individual housing units with 275-300 square feet.  Each unit must have a bathroom and kitchen.  Innovation and sustainability will be major criteria for determining the winner.

All proposals must be certified by the Enterprise Green Communities Program, which provides guidelines for safe, green, cost-smart housing.  The funding for the competition is coming purely from private sources.  “With this important housing pilot, New York once again leads world cities in devising creative solutions to the challenge of accommodating growth in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the non-profit Partnership for New York City.

The initiative is part of Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan.  This is a long-term project that will either preserve or create 165,000 affordable housing units by the end of 2014’s fiscal year.  A conference for interested design teams was held on July 31^st, and the deadline for proposals to be submitted is September 14^th.   This tiny home movement hopes to be the wave of the future.

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The most common NYC building violations usually occur in existing buildings. These violations vary, but the most common ones tend to endanger the health and safety of the occupants of these buildings. To help protect the health and safety of their citizens, the city of New York has provisions in place that give tenants the recourse that they need to report these violations.

Tenants can easily contact local officials about any violations that they notice. The officials will then issue the tenants a brochure about common NYC building violations, and they will also speak to the facility’s owner about fixing these issues. Some issues, however, are considered to be emergency issues. If an emergency violation is reported to the city, the city officials will simply fix it. Then, they will issue a bill to the building’s owners. These bills can be substantially larger than those that would have been incurred if the building’s owner was allowed to fix the issue by themselves.

In many cases, these violations are not an egregious attack on the tenants of the building. In most cases, they are actually oversights by the building’s owner, or they are violations that have developed during the course of the building’s life span. Luckily, when an owner has a building that they are concerned about, they can turn to professionals who can guide them. These professionals will work diligently to ensure that their clients’ buildings meet all of the necessary NYC building codes. These services are provided by companies like Burnham Nationwide, and they can also be useful for landlords who have recently acquired a new property.

If you are worried about whether or not your building meets the required codes, you should contact a professional at Burnham. They can help guide you in the correct direction. They have been working closely with landlords, tenants, and city officials for years. They can conduct a third party inspection, which can reveal whether or not your building has any violations. Finally, your Burnham consultant can provide you with the remedy that can help you fix these NYC building violations and avoid their reoccurrence.

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As we celebrate our first 20 years, we can’t help but wonder what’s in store for the next 20? Our valued clients associate Burnham with the uniform, a tailored blue button down with an orange Burnham logo. With confidence, we can say this branding effort has made us a fixture in City Hall, in Chicago where it all began and in thousands of municipalities nationwide. Efficiencies will be created and processes improved as we continue to leverage existing and new technologies. Our commitment to the global adoption of sustainable building and development practices will bloom bigger and brighter.

 We do know that the next 20 years will go by faster than our first – and we have already initiated efforts to improve our process and systems to enable everyone to be more productive:

 > All of our teams are utilizing iPhones, equipped with the best applications to simplify efforts in exchanging and processing information timely.  

> We have partnered with Avolve Software, Inc. and their ProjectDox™ application that will allow us to process electronic drawings, perform plan reviews, and deliver information more efficiently and effectively.

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A comprehensive national rollout often requires construction related permits from a variety of jurisdictions, departments and agencies. Our Nationwide division, working with our local circles of support, is now able to provide retailers, architects, engineers, contractors, building owners, property managers, and construction managers with expert permitting and code consulting solutions geared to their specific needs.

Through our Nationwide division we’ve helped companies such as Chase Bank, T-Mobile, Walgreens, Marriott, Starbucks and many others with their multiple location construction agendas. Our permit technicians have helped normalize the disparate permit processes for thousands of unique municipal authorities and construction projects throughout the country!

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• Burnham Celebrates It’s 20th Anniversary!

“Our first office was at 299 Broadway, it was a closet that fit three folding tables and three chairs. As business grew, we moved out and up to130 William Streetand 1500 roomy square feet. My first thought was, ‘ what are we going to do with all this space?’ It quickly filled up and shortly thereafter we moved up 4 floors and added 1500 square feet of office space for a total of 3000 square feet. Our current location is directly across the street from the NYC Department of Buildings, which is convenient for our clients and us. I think we can claim to be the closest consultants to the Building Department.

 As the new guys in town, our early years in NY were challenging. Mike Gaynor even spent a couple years working the streets trying to land new clients. Now we have a staff of 15 and in the past year alone secured permits for ABS Partners Real Estate, Brookfield Properties, CB Richard Ellis, Park Tower Management, Tribeca Green & The Veneto. It’s been a wild, crazy and rewarding ride. Here’s to another 20.”

-        Tom Walsh, Burnham -New York

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This year Burnham celebrates its 20th anniversary and we’d like to take this opportunity to share with you the story of how Burnham Nationwide came to be, where we are headed and how Daniel Burnham’s message has inspired us along the way.

 > Fast forward 6 years…

It’s 1998 and at Burnham Nationwide we have fully embraced Daniel Burnham’s sentiment to make no little plans. We’ve aimed high and made some big strides, and most importantly learned from our experiences. After the first couple years in business it became quite clear to us that in order to succeed we would need to develop partnerships with leading architects, contractors, and building managers who understood our values and appreciated our platform for managing their compliance obligations. Like many other companies, we recognized the importance Customer Relationship Management (CRM) would have in our future growth and success.

Big Changes in Technology  Service Lines and Locations

 Information systems that had been developed to manage the Chicago process were at their limit, for example: we needed bigger and better bandwidth. Working with Siebel Systems we developed a robust CRM system that would effectively manage our information and enhance the special experience in which our reputation was built.

 The Code Group was launched in 2001, and focused on developing a deeper understanding of building codes. This commitment has enabled Burnham to better define our technical services, and provide us with the credentials to provide services beyond that of a typical “Permit Expeditor”.

 Physically, we needed to be in more places to service our growing client base. We opened our first satellite office in New York City, a temporary office in St. Louis, and Detroit followed shortly thereafter. We also began efforts to find partners for offices in Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles.    

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The cost of living in New York City can be so exorbitantly high that many residents will wrack their brains trying to think of ways that they can reduce their expenses. In addition, many residents may wonder how they can decrease the size of their carbon footprint while saving money. One solution for both of these problems that many people around the world are turning to is rooftop solar panels. However, this solution can be a difficult one to implement for many New York City residents who live in buildings that they do not personally own.

If a resident does not own their roof, they may not be able to simply walk onto it and install their own panels. However, they can work with the building’s other residents to petition the owner or manager to add solar panels to the structure. This process has been made even easier by the recent research that has been conducted by the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability.

According to David Bragdon who is the director of that office, New York City could easily add thousands of megawatts of solar power. He also claims that the city has been working on making the permit process easier for residents and easing certain regulations to make adding panels more feasible for all sorts of structures.

His comments were made after the city paid $450,000 to the Lidar Company to perform a series of investigative flights over the city. During these flights, they took a number of pictures and collected a lot of data about the million plus buildings in the city to create a detailed map. The information that was collected shows details about the shapes, angles, and sizes of all of the rooftops in the city. Based on this map, over two-thirds of the roofs in this city are well suited to the addition of rooftop solar panels.

If panels were added to all of the roofs where they could possibly be added, they would generate enough power to create half of the city’s electricity needs during peak hours! The professionals who conducted these studies claim that they analyzed not only the rooftops themselves but also how the shading in each area would affect how well the panels would work if they were added.

When residents of New York City are interested in finding out about the specific nature of their building in regards to its potential for housing rooftop panels, they can visit an interactive version of the map that was created by the information collected by the Lidar Company. The map was paid for by the federal Department of Energy under their Solar America Cities Program and cost the city $210,000.

The map allows residents to view their building and analyze its potential to go solar. Interested residents can look at information about their offices, their homes, or even their friends’ homes.  When they enter their address, they can discover a lot of relevant information on how that address would respond to the implementation of solar collecting panels.

For instance, they will discover how much solar energy could be produced on that particular roof. The estimates are based upon how much light the roof receives, how large it is, its angle, and other factors. They can also find out information on government programs including tax breaks and financial incentives. If they are gathering information to present to the building’s owner or manager, they may also be interested in looking at the section of the interactive map that includes detailed data on how much the solar panels would cost to install and how many years it would take the buildings’ owners to get that initial cost back through energy savings.

People who are curious about the environment may enjoy exploring other features of the interactive map. For instance, they can look at how much carbon dioxide they could avoid if their building implemented panels. They can also look at how many trees it would take to absorb that same amount of carbon dioxide.

One reason that some building owners shy away from installing panels is the regulations that surround such additions. However, the U.S. Department of Energy has recently eased many of these regulations. They have pledged to send $12 million to various organizations to help make the regulations surrounding the installation of rooftop panels easier to navigate.

When people live in a city like New York, they may often feel like they have limited control over some of their circumstances. For instance, they cannot simply add rooftop solar panels to their high rise as easily as someone could add them to the top of their barn in Iowa. However, with accurate information gathered from trustworthy sources, such as the map referred to above, they can easily convince their building owner or homeowner’s association to add these structures.

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At Burnham Nationwide, we can provide our clients with green building consultants whose job it is to work directly with project managers, building owners, architects, and engineers. Their role is to advise these professionals about the best ways of integrating green technologies into their next building project. Their advice concerns how to meet USGBC’s LEED certification standards as well as how to integrate green technologies that will save the building’s owner money and increase the property’s ultimate resale value. We can tailor our advice to fit the needs of your particular project.

When you speak with our green building consultants, you will discover things that you may have never realized about green technologies and methods. Some of the emerging technologies are simply too expensive to be useful right now. However, every day technologies have become more pervasive and more affordable. Our consultants can help you discover which ones are right for your project. Their experience gives them the necessary skills to crunch the numbers regarding each technology. For instance, they can help you figure out how much it will cost to implement certain technologies. These technologies could be anything from toxin absorbent paints to green roofing materials that help filter air to certain types of solar energy panels. After they help you estimate installation costs, our consultants can assist you with ascertaining the long-term value of these efforts. When looking at the long-term value, they will consider things such as how much energy you will save, how the technology will affect the security of the building’s occupants, and how it will eventually affect the property’s value.

At Burnham, we are committed to pursuing environmental excellence and creating structures that are more welcoming, more energy-efficient, more attractive, and finally, more profitable than their non-green counterparts. We extend this level of commitment to our clients so that their next project can achieve these goals. Our consultants are also trained in LEED certification standards, and we ensure that we take you through all of the necessary steps so that you receive all of the relevant tax credits and recognition that are associated with this program.

At Burnham, we believe in tailoring our offerings to your needs. If you are interested in educating your team members about the benefits of our green building practices, we can offer that to you as well. We are interested in providing professionals with information on the benefits of green building and giving them the knowledge that they need to implement these practices into their commercial or residential buildings. In addition to providing education, we can help the designers of your project add green elements.

When it comes to being green, our business model is built around a serious set of principles. We are one of the nation’s leaders in the progression of the green building movement. We serve all kinds of clients, and we offer services that address the needs of almost all types of buildings and projects. If you want someone to work with you on your next project, we would love to speak with you. Our green building consultants use proven methods, and they have the experience and organizational skills to be with you through every step of your project from drafting the plans to filing the paperwork to completing it all. We have helped many of our clients earn their LEED certifications. We have worked with projects that have focused on everything from building schools to revamping existing apartment blocks to meet contemporary green standards. To see some of our achievements, you only need to browse through our website and look at our client testimonials. We have a formula for success that allows us to help our clients execute even the most difficult and innovative projects.

Because we have been working with clients in so many capacities for so many years, we know what will help them the most. We have close relationships with the building officials in most cities. This makes the entire process of applying for permits much more streamlined and straightforward. In addition, we have also worked closely with the officials of the USGBC, and we understand what needs to be completed and filed for a project to earn their LEED certification. We let our connections and experience work for you.

At Burnham, we do not want to just sell you a service. Instead, we want to provide you with value. We give this to you in the form of our collective experience. Our experience provides the necessary leadership and technical knowledge for your next project. Our staff consists of renowned professionals with extensive knowledge about architecture, engineering and design. We are committed to facilitating and educating our clients to affect real change in the building industry. At Burnham, we believe that green buildings should be more than just the right design or a certain construction. We believe that they should be high-performing spaces that benefit their owners and their occupants. This belief allows us to help create buildings that offer more than they consume. It allows us to help create buildings that give back to the environment and the economy of their communities.  These are the commitments that you will get when working with any of our consultants.

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Since hurricane Irene hit the area, there has been a lot of speculation about how the NY building codes will be revamped to deal with excessive wind and flooding. Inevitably, there will be changes to the codes. Even without code changes, architects will start to look at their buildings with a keener eye toward these sorts of environmental occurrences.

NY building codes have been responding to natural disasters since well before the city was even named New York. In 1654, in a response to many area fires, the city officials in New Amsterdam (the previous name of New York) ordered that no new buildings could be constructed with chimneys that were made from wood. About 350 years later, when terrorism hit the city, the codes were updated as a response to the problems that could happen as a result of that occurrence. Now, it will be interesting to watch how new codes are developed in response to more recent disasters.

One way that they may change is that they may mandate the use of more concrete in certain structures. Concrete is one of the materials that are most resistant to hurricanes and winds. In fact, in one Mississippi neighborhood, after Hurricane Katrina, the only building left standing was made out of concrete. Some of the other code changes may address aspects such as roofing materials.

When exposed to excessive winds, asphalt shingles that were held together with staple guns were less stable than those held together with nails. Clay roofing tiles tend to be more stable than asphalt ones, but it is unlikely that the codes will mandate these tiles, as they are also likely to shatter if they are hit by blowing debris. Gravel roofs can be resistant if they are well maintained. However, if they are not well maintained, they can come off in flakey layers. Some other codes may change to address buildings’ envelopes. For instance, masonry systems are more advantageous than wall systems because they resist envelope breaches that often occur due to high winds or flying pieces of debris.

At this point, we can only speculate how the NY building codes will change as a response to the area’s latest disaster. However, we know from close to four centuries of experience that the codes will change. Our team will keep ahead of these changes so that your team does not have to.

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