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The New York City Department of Buildings issued building permits for 576 residential units in 133 buildings citywide in January and February, just 20 % of the total reached for the same period in 2008 and just 13 % of the permits issued in January and February of 2007. If the current trend holds, annual construction could fall below 20,000 units for the first time since 2002 - more than 40 % below last year’s volume. In a worst case scenario, we could potentially slip to under 15,000 new units in 2009, which is a level we have not seen since the mid-l 990s. Let us use this downturn to push reforms to promote the license requirements at the DoB and other agencies.

As your Chapter president, I attended various meetings at the DoB including the April 14th meeting during which we discussed the quality of the plan examination review process. The need to formalize and publish determinations made during plan examinations as well as the lack of respect toward professional applicants was also discussed The DoB confirmed that it has a goal of creating a searchable database of such decisions to reduce inconsistent determinations.

Another topic discussed was the proposed revisions to the professional certification rules. We have approximately one month to provide our comments to these proposed revisions, and I invite you to email me your comments so we can address everyone’s concerns. The thrust of the proposed modification is that professional certification will be a privilege extended to certain qualified and certified registered design professionals rather than an option available to all registered design professionals. This will raise the bar for our profession and should ultimately result in higher quality submittals and a higher level of accountability.

One topic that was not discussed, but that I intend to raise at the next meeting in May, is the issue of “expeditors” becoming bolder than ever and looking for “rubber stampers.” What had started as a cottage industry to save professionals time, much as paralegals do for attorneys, has morphed into a practice that is extremely detrimental to our profession. We as professional engineers in NYC must tackle this problem which jeopardizes our professional standing before it becomes so entrenched that we will not be able to reverse it. One sound proposal would be that just as paralegals may only work as part of an attorney’s office, and under the direct supervision of an attorney, expeditors should also be a division of a firm led by a licensed professional engineer or registered architect. Another much discussed proposal was that only PEs or RAs would be entitled to meet with the plan examiners, just as attorneys, not paralegals, present cases to the Court. I would certainly like to hear your opinions and suggestions on this topic.

On another topic, I would like to update you on the lawsuit filed against NYC by NYSPE regarding the appointment of a non-licensed professional as the NYC DoB Commissioner. NYC filed a motion for dismissal on the grounds that the licensed first deputy commissioner requirement satisfies the NYS Education law. The attorney for NYSPE will be filing a request for a declaratory judgment and the judge will then decide the correct interpretation of the NYS education laws. This lawsuit is not a reflection of Commissioner LiMandri, who is a graduate engineer and who is implementing many good reforms at the DoB. Rather, the lawsuit deals with the fundamentals of professional licensing jurisdiction and responsibilities.

In this vein, we are expecting the NSPE, our national society, to file an amicus brief in support of our suit. I believe it is very important that the national society provides support in this suit, and I would like every member to send a letter to our Executive Director, Larry Jacobson, Esq., our President, Brad Aldrich, PE, and President-Elect, Sam Grossman, PE requesting their help. We are somewhat underfunded for this lawsuit, and we are asking our members, just as we have asked the national society, to contribute to our legal fund.

As everyone is surely aware, the new rules on special inspections will be in place as of next July and I urge you all to prepare your submittal package to be pre-qualified to perform those special inspections on behalf of NYC. Already, some of the exams offered by ICC (International Code Council) are sold out through this June. Our sister organization, PIE (Professional Institute for Engineering) will be submitting a proposal shortly to the DoB to also be an accrediting agency for the DoB at a lower cost than the present agency. The NY Society of Architects will be holding a technical forum on special inspections, and it would behoove all of us who file with the DoB to attend this forum.

For your information, I would like to remind you that the DoB will start to perform audits of compliance with the NYS energy code starting June 1, 2009. This is again positive news as it will impede expeditors who have set up shop as one-stop design and approval stores from acting as “copy cats” using energy calculations from one submission to another.

At our chapter level, I am glad to report that we have had a great streak of attendance at our recent events. The presentation on the Nation's First Net Zero Building by Edward Brzezowski, P.E., LEED AP, President of Noveda Technologies, was very informative and was followed by a great Q and A session. The presentation on the Second Avenue Subway by William E. Goodrich, P.E., Senior Vice President and Program Executive, MTA Capital Construction and Peter Charnley, PE, Principal of ARUP and Chief Engineer for the project brought the “who’s who” in tunneling to our meeting.

We have two great events coming up - on May 13th, Greg Loosvelot, CEO of EarthPledge, will talk about “Waste = Fuel Initiative”, turning garbage into power. One June 17th, we will have our final dinner before our summer break with our scholarship award ceremony and installation of new officers. Please contact me if you would like to be more active in our chapter, or want to nominate new members.

On June 4th and 6th, our NYSSPE annual convention will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Pearl River, NY, just 25 miles north of NYC, since our new state president hails from Rockland County. On July 15th, the national convention will be held in St. Louis, MO. It would be wonderful for our chapter to be well represented at each of these events.

Thanks to all who contribute their ideas, experience, wisdom and energy to our chapter.