Only three of New York’s 25 tallest residential buildings — and none of the towers on Billionaires’ Row — have completed building safety tasks required by the city.
All eight of the towers were missing final signoff from the Department of Buildings on elevators and plumbing; seven did not have final signoff on fire sprinklers and standpipes; and five were missing approvals from the fire department.1
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[T]hese supertall buildings fall under rules that in some cases were created with prewar buildings in mind and do not consider significant changes in building design, said Jose Torero, the head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London, and an expert on fire-safety engineering. Some fire resistance calculations, for instance, are predicated on much more compartmentalized floor plans, not the open floor designs of luxury condos, and fire can spread differently in a building with a glass facade, compared to one with brick exteriors.2
Still, a lack of transparency in the city’s building system could obscure early signs of larger issues, especially for this class of once-impossible supertalls that have only recently taken root in the city. The department’s digital filing system, parts of it decades old, can feel labyrinthine even for seasoned professionals, making it hard to understand why some tasks remain incomplete. In recent years the city has introduced a new system, DOB Now, but many details related to certificate of occupancy issues are not readily available to the public.
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- 1. There are at least hundreds of buildings across the city that similarly have not received what is known as a final certificate of occupancy, and the system of temporary certificates that allows buildings to be occupied without these final approvals has been in place for decades. But the stakes have never been higher. The surge of supertall towers near or above 1,000 feet tall across the city in the last decade is without precedent, and the buildings, skinnier and more complicated than ever before, are exposing gaps in the city’s enforcement strategy that could pose safety risks if left unchecked, according to interviews with engineers, urban planners and former employees of the Department of Buildings.
- 2. A deficiency in one mechanical system could trigger problems in another, he added, and outdated building codes, even when followed to the letter, can be inadequate. “The answer is, I don’t know how safe these buildings are, and nobody does,” he said. “Nobody really knows what they’re truly approving.” Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the buildings department, said the city’s construction and fire-resistance standards are more stringent than national standards. “New York City has some of the strongest, safest building code requirements in the world, and they’re updated regularly to keep pace with changes in the industry,” he said, citing several changes announced in April.