New laws aim at crooked self-certifiers

The city is trying to curtail the abuses of the self-certification process, which oftentimes leads to illegal and unwanted real estate overdevelopment, by passing two laws targeting repeat offenders.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently signed two bills into law that will require architects or engineers with a history of misfiling information for development projects, have their plans certified by Department of Buildings (DOB) inspectors instead of utilizing self-certification.
“While most professional engineers and registered architects use the professional self-certification process responsibly, restricting the professional self-certification privileges of those professionals who abuse the system will help us to ensure the safety of our residents and communities and the fabric of our neighborhoods,” Bloomberg said.
One of the laws requires the DOB to review plans submitted by any professional on probation with the State Board of Regents, which will suspend their self-certification right.
The other law gives the DOB the authority to suspend or revoke self-certification privileges for those who file false information regarding plans with the Department. In addition, those who have their right suspended must attend courses geared to help them correctly fill out their paperwork in the future.
In addition, the laws also give DOB Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, the authority to permanently revoke self-certification privileges for those on probation who file false paperwork with the department.
“These laws provide the Buildings Department with the authority to exclude from the professional certification program those professionals who abuse the privilege of professionally certifying that their applications comply with law,” Lancaster said in a statement.
Problems with the self-certification process have been hot-button issues throughout the borough causing many representatives from the Queens council delegation to sponsor these bills.
Queens City Councilmember David Weprin, who recently introduced bills calling for the complete elimination of the self-certification for one, two and three family houses, said that these two laws were a good start.
“I think they are a good first step,” Weprin said. “Any kind of crackdown on self-certification and putting the certifiers on notice is a positive.”
However, Weprin also expressed concerns that the new laws may prevent a certain individual who is on probation from certifying plans, but it may not prevent his company or a friend from doing it.
Meanwhile, City Councilmember Joseph Addabbo, who is also a proponent of both of the laws, said that the city should look to increase funding to the DOB so that they can provide more inspectors.
“They [the laws] are only as good as they are enforced,” Addabbo said.
In addition, Addabbo said that that the council is willing to work with the DOB, but if it were to allocate additional funding to the department, he would want to make sure that resources were used wisely.
“I think the process has started already,” he said. “We have acknowledged we will not [grant additional funding] until they show us that their training is appropriate and the building inspectors are qualified,” he said.