Buildings 'revolution' revealed.Calling her multi-year overhaul of the Buildings Department a "revolution," NYC NYC abbr. New York City NYC New York City Building's Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, AIA AIA - Application Integration Architecture met with the Irish American Building Society (IABS IABS International Association for Business and Society IABs International Association for Biologicals (Switzerland) IABS International Association of Buddhist Studies (Lausanne, Switzerland) ) recently at its Fall meeting and discussion roundtable. First announcing that crime continued to decrease another 5% and residential property values continued to rise by 15%, the Commissioner was also the bearer of good news for the building and construction audience, noting that the construction industry--now at $16 billion annually--is employing approximately 30,000 workers, and with another $36 billion on the drawing boards for the next 10 years, "the prognosis is good." Most of the Commissioner's time has been taken up with Herculean task simply defined by Mayor Bloomberg as "fix the department", which has involved a comprehensive "renovation" including everything from revolutionizing the way personnel think, file and provide information, to a massive computerization com·put·er·ize tr.v. com·put·er·ized, com·put·er·iz·ing, com·put·er·iz·es 1. To furnish with a computer or computer system. 2. To enter, process, or store (information) in a computer or system of computers. of all functions, from prefiling to finalizing the C of O process. She has also decentralized de·cen·tral·ize v. de·cen·tral·ized, de·cen·tral·iz·ing, de·cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To distribute the administrative functions or powers of (a central authority) among several local authorities. where necessary, and even tackled human resources issues such as providing sales training for those dealing with the public. Working towards the goal of making the department more "transparent" with information available on-line for all involved, she also has had to deal with inherited corruption issues within the department, and alongside working on multiple procedural changes to eliminate opportunities for corruption, issued the department's first code of conduct. With an agenda that is bringing the department into the 21st Century, she is also working with industry groups to bring the very codes that govern NYC's buildings into congruence con·gru·ence n. 1. a. Agreement, harmony, conformity, or correspondence. b. An instance of this: "What an extraordinary congruence of genius and era" with the rest of the international building community. With what she called a "dream team" of industry professionals examining every aspect of the International Building Code, and recommending the New York-specific customizations, she hopes to have the revised code ready on January 1, 2006. When questioned by IABS members on whether the Code will include the recommendations of the World Trade Center Building Code Task Force, particularly issues such as stairwell stair·well n. A vertical shaft around which a staircase has been built. stairwell Noun a vertical shaft in a building that contains a staircase Noun 1. sizes and hardening of facilities, she said that they would be incorporated, and will take into account the balance of economics and safety. Lancaster is also advocating green building practices. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion