By Jeremy Walsh
The city Department of Buildings has launched a new online building application process that officials said will provide an unprecedented level of public access to upcoming projects.
"This new process will give the public a chance to see what a building will look like before the first shovel hits the ground and developers certainty that once the public has had an opportunity to comment and any compliance issues have been resolved, their project can move forward,” DOB Commissioner Robert LiMandri said in a statement..
After a project is approved by the DOB, residents will have 30 days to look at the plans and submit challenges to the plan. Afterward, the agency will respond to the individual comments.
“It’s far easier to correct a schematic than for us to change it after it gets going,” said Donald Ranshte, intergovernmental and community affairs director for the DOB, at a Community Board 2 meeting last week.
CB 2 members were enthusiastic about the plan, but wanted active notification from the DOB.
“We’ve had this happen where the DOB approves a plan and we spend the next six months fighting it because it’s out of context or out of zoning,” CB 2 Chairman Joseph Conley said.
Ranshte said any building plans available for public review through the process already would have to conform to zoning standards.
“I think this is generally good,” said member Jimmy Van Bramer of the online public review process. “But just putting it there doesn’t mean people can find it.”
Ranshte called the new records system a “self-serve model” and suggested staff from individual community boards check the DOB Web site once a week to identify new construction plans.
“We can’t notify 8.5 million people,” he said. “It’s impossible.”
But the system is not a winner with at least one Queens developer. Vincent Riso, president of the major residential developer Briarwood Organization, called the plan “the epitome of delays.”
“There should be a right to look at these things,” he said at a Queens Chamber of Commerce breakfast in March. “But if a bank knows the public could hold me up for six months, they’re not going to provide financing.”
Queens Chamber President Albert Pennisi said his group also opposed the new system.
“This would hold up progress when we need the jobs,” he said.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
