New York City – New and more rigorous annual elevator inspections attended by independent witnesses are detecting about 50 percent more violations in New York City than in previous years, with the owners of some 15,720 elevators already facing repair bills as a result.
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The Department of Buildings, apartment owners, property managers and elevator maintenance firms agree that the tougher rules are worth the extra expense, even if it is coming at a difficult time.
“There are certain things that you can’t skimp on, and elevator safety is one of them,” said Paul R. Gottsegen, the president of the Halstead Management Company, which specializes in luxury co-ops and condominiums.
“If it costs more money, then you have to delay building the playroom this year,” Mr. Gottsegen said. “If you have to assess to get the money, that is the cost of living in an elevator building. These things need to be taken care of.”
Still, with real estate values shrinking and property taxes rising, many apartment owners are feeling the sting. Inspection fees and repairs can easily run to thousands of dollars, and among small co-ops and condos, where costs are shared by a few, “the burden is a larger multiple,” said Stuart D. Smolar, the executive director of the Andrews Building Corporation in Manhattan, which manages more than 300 buildings.
The new requirements, which took effect on Jan. 1, mandate an examination of “all parts of the equipment,” and replace the annual basic inspections of the past. Carly Sullivan, a Department of Buildings spokeswoman, said the in-depth look is part of efforts to bring New York City’s building code in line with national standards.
The biggest change: For the first time, an independent licensed expert witness must be present at the checkup, at an additional cost to the building of $175 to $1,300, according to one elevator maintenance company. The inspector, as previously, is also licensed by the city, but typically works for the elevator owner’s maintenance provider.
“It is very clear why they added the third-party witness,” said Paul J. Gans, the vice president for building operations at the New Bedford Management Corporation. “They felt they wanted extra security and a guarantee that it was done properly. It puts the maintenance company more on its toes.” New Bedford Management oversees about 75 elevators in properties in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.
The code revision also eased the deadline for correcting defects. While owners must immediately shut down any “unsafe or hazardous” elevator, they have 45 days to make repairs after a less urgent defect is reported. Previously, such repairs had to be made within 30 days. Inspectors must report dangerous problems to the city within 24 hours, but have 45 days to report less serious defects.
While that allows up to 90 days to clear up routine violations, the Department of Buildings has, in tandem, instituted administrative changes to better ensure that defects are reported, tracked and corrected in a timely fashion, owners and elevator maintenance firms say.
“Things were not as well followed up, and the Buildings Department was unable to take control of that,” said Richard A. Smith, the field supervisor for McGlynn, Hays & Company, which services about 600 elevators in New York City and New Jersey. “Sometimes, the paperwork would go in and nothing would happen for months.”
Mr. Gans of New Bedford Management said: “We definitely noticed the follow-up has gotten incredibly better in the past 18 months. Before, there didn’t seem to be a system to track that repairs were due. Now their computer system is getting better. Things were slipping through, no doubt.”
New York has 54,806 passenger elevators and 3,985 freight elevators, and all are subject to the new requirement. The building code also requires passenger elevator owners to contract with an approved outside firm for maintenance and repair work.
As of the end of August, 25,777 inspections had been carried out, and violations were reported to the city in 61 percent of them, compared with 41 percent during the same period last year, according to Ms. Sullivan, the Department of Buildings spokeswoman.
“This is about making sure that issues are brought to the attention of the owner earlier, that smaller issues are identified earlier, and that repairs are made earlier,” Ms. Sullivan said. “We’ve seen that more unsatisfactory reports have been submitted to the department and more maintenance issues are being identified on these elevators. Not only are more being identified, but there is more oversight and follow-up.”
In recent years, thousands of elevator checkups once done exclusively by city inspectors have increasingly been farmed out to private companies hired and paid by building owners. Often these firms were inspecting elevators that they were paid to maintain, a potential conflict of interest in the absence of third-party witnesses.
Private inspectors first got a piece of the inspection process in 1981, and their role grew after April 1996, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani suspended 42 city elevator inspectors, or three-quarters of the inspector work force, on suspicion of taking bribes. A City Council investigation made public three years after those suspensions accused the department of dragging its feet on action to prevent inspection-related graft. A 2007 audit by the New York State comptroller’s office found that many city inspections were being performed late, improperly documented or carried out by inspectors who were not fully qualified.
Despite the financial pain resulting from this year’s reforms, residents and building managers seemed determined to take a philosophical approach.
“Some buildings have incurred some large bills for what needed to be done,” said Mr. Smolar, the building manager. “It’s sort of like any capital work; you’ve got to figure out some way to deal with it.
“It’s New York real estate. If it’s not this, there always seems to be something that finds its way into the budget.”
Cause the city is scrwed up in their project buildings why are they busting all other managements when they didn’t even take care of their buildings!!! Guys in the W do you see any improvement there???