Qualified Exterior Wall Inspectors (QEWI), Qualified Retaining Wall Inspectors (QRWI), and Qualified Parking Structure Inspectors (QPSI

Online comments: 12

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  What did it cost the Department to administer QEWI, QPSI and QRWI approvals in the last completed fiscal year?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. I hold no client interest in any matter addressed here. No allegation of misconduct by any individual or firm is made or implied anywhere in this comment or in any of the nine others I am submitting on this rule.

  The Department already performs this work. It reviews applications, verifies credentials, and maintains the three designation registers today, at no charge to anyone. That work has a cost, and the Department knows what it is, because it appears in a budget. The entire justification offered in the Statement of Basis and Purpose is one sentence: “Approval of these types of inspectors creates a significant amount of work for the Department.” That sentence establishes that a cost exists. It does not state the cost, how it was measured, or how it produces the six dollar figures in Section 1. My first request is the simplest one available: publish the number the Department already has.

  The proposed figures are $960 initial and $320 renewal for QEWI, $960 initial and $320 renewal for QPSI, and $875 initial and $300 renewal for QRWI.

  The following calculation reverse-engineers what those figures imply about staff time. I offer it not as an assertion about the Department’s actual costs, which I cannot know, but so that the Department can rebut it with its actual cost data. Every assumption is stated on its face.

  LOADED HOURLY RATE, DERIVED FROM THE DEPARTMENT’S OWN PUBLISHED SALARY BAND

  The Department’s Facades and Local Law unit administers both the Facade Inspection and Safety Program and the Periodic Inspections of Parking Structures program, and is therefore the unit that would perform this review. The City’s official careers site posted a Supervising Inspector, Construction position in that unit at a salary range of $70,898 to $81,533.

  Applying a fringe benefit factor of 35 percent to 45 percent produces a fully loaded annual cost of approximately $95,712 to $118,223. Dividing by approximately 1,750 productive hours per year, after holidays and leave, produces a fully loaded rate of approximately $55 to $68 per hour. If the Department applies a different classification, fringe rate, or productive-hour assumption, it should publish those instead and the calculation below should be redone with them.

  WHAT THE PROPOSED FEES IMPLY ABOUT STAFF TIME

  At $55 to $68 per hour fully loaded, a $320 annual renewal fee is consistent with cost recovery only if a single renewal consumes approximately 4.7 to 5.8 hours of Department staff time.

  A $300 annual renewal fee for a QRWI implies approximately 4.4 to 5.5 hours.

  A $960 initial fee implies approximately 14.1 to 17.5 hours.

  An $875 initial fee implies approximately 12.9 to 15.9 hours.

  Stated the other way, if a renewal consumes 30 minutes of staff time, the $320 fee charges $640 per hour. If it consumes one hour, the fee charges $320 per hour. If it consumes two hours, the fee charges $160 per hour. Only at approximately five hours does the implied rate fall inside the Department’s own published salary band.

  For the initial fee, if the combined resume review and interview consume two hours, the $960 fee charges $480 per hour. At four hours it charges $240 per hour. At eight hours it charges $120 per hour. Only at approximately fifteen hours does the implied rate fall inside the published band.

  The question this puts to the Department is concrete and answerable: does a renewal of a QEWI, QPSI or QRWI designation consume roughly five hours of staff time, and does an initial application consume roughly fifteen? If it does, publish the breakdown, because that would be genuinely useful information for everyone in this field. If it does not, the fees are not derived from cost.

  THE DEPARTMENT’S OWN CONCURRENT RULE SHOWS THAT IT CAN PRODUCE A COST FIGURE

  Proposed rule DOB-210, 1 RCNY 101-20, relating to incomplete inspections, is open for comment at the same time as this rule, closing September 9, 2026. Its Statement of Basis and Purpose states that approximately 44,000 incomplete inspections between 2021 and May 2026 cost the City over $2 million. That is approximately $45.45 per incident, and each of those incidents involves an inspector traveling to a job site, waiting, and returning.

  I support DOB-210 and said so in my comment on it filed August 5, 2026. I ask the Department to notice the comparison. In one rule it has quantified a cost per event at approximately $45 for a field visit. In this rule it proposes to charge $320 per year, roughly seven times that amount, for what the rule text describes as confirming that a registrant’s State license remains current. Two rules, same agency, same fiscal year, same rulemaking cycle. One has a published cost basis and one does not. I asked for the cost basis on DOB-210, a rule I support. I am asking for it here on the same terms.

  WHAT THE ANNUAL RENEWAL ACTUALLY CONSISTS OF

  The rule identifies no renewal activity other than confirming that the registrant remains a licensed professional in good standing. That is a query against the New York State Education Department’s free public license verification service, which the State maintains at no cost to the City and which is authoritative in a way the Department’s own registers are not.

  I documented the register defects in Exhibit A to my comment of August 3, 2026 on the FY2027 Regulatory Agenda. Two separate and divergent QEWI files are published simultaneously with no statement of which is authoritative. Three license numbers appear under conflicting names across registers: PE 068107 appears twice in the QRWI register as separate rows because of a first-name and last-name swap, PE 090604 appears as one name in the QRWI register and a different one in the QPSI register, and PE 094087 appears under one given name in the QPSI register and a different given name in the QRWI and QEWI registers. The QRWI register is published at a URL with the designation abbreviation transposed. No register carries a status field, effective date, expiration date, or revocation history. No register is published in machine-readable form or to Open Data. A licensed professional cannot reliably verify from these documents that a colleague or retained inspector currently holds a Department designation.

  That is a public safety defect, not a clerical one, and it exists today at no charge. This rule proposes to begin charging annually while it persists.

  THE POPULATION FIGURES DO NOT RECONCILE, AND THE REVENUE DEPENDS ON THEM

  The Statement of Basis and Purpose states that there are 501 QEWIs, 188 QPSIs and 69 QRWIs, for 758 designations.

  Direct enumeration of the Department’s own published registers, cross-referenced by license number, yields 491 QEWIs, 188 QPSIs and 67 QRWIs, for 746 designation records held by 641 unique individuals. Twelve individuals hold all three designations. Sixty-two hold QEWI and QPSI, eleven hold QPSI and QRWI, and eight hold QEWI and QRWI, for eighty-one individuals holding exactly two. Four hundred nine hold QEWI only, one hundred three hold QPSI only, and thirty-six hold QRWI only.

  The QPSI count matches the Department’s figure exactly at 188. The QEWI count differs by ten and the QRWI count differs by two.

  A third figure appears in the Department’s own consultant’s work. The FISP Recommendations Report prepared for the Department states at Section 4.1 that the Department contacted all registered QEWIs for its survey and that 484 registered QEWIs were contacted.

  Three sources, three counts. The Department should state which is authoritative and reconcile the others, because the revenue and the per-person burden both depend on it.

  REVENUE AND IMPLIED STAFFING

  At the Department’s stated populations, the proposed renewal fees produce approximately $241,180 per year at steady state. At the enumerated populations, approximately $237,380.

  At $55 to $68 per hour fully loaded, $241,180 corresponds to approximately 3,547 to 4,385 staff hours, or approximately 2.0 to 2.5 full-time employees working exclusively on renewals of 758 designations.

  The Department should state whether it in fact devotes two to two and a half full-time positions annually to renewing these designations, and if so what those positions do.

  THE COST OF A FUNCTIONING REGISTER IS NEGLIGIBLE, AND THAT IS THE POINT

  Seven hundred forty-six designation records at approximately 300 bytes each, comprising name, license type and number, designation, status, effective and expiration dates, and a history pointer, total approximately 213 kilobytes. The complete register of every facade, parking structure and retaining wall inspector authorized in the City of New York is roughly one fifth of one megabyte.

  On commercial managed cloud infrastructure with a no-cost tier of 50,000 document reads per day, or 18,250,000 per year, five million verification lookups per year does not reach the paid tier. Five million lookups is approximately 294 verifications annually for each of the roughly 17,000 buildings in the Facade Inspection and Safety Program. Storage of that dataset costs a fraction of one cent per year. Cloud pricing should be confirmed against the provider’s current published schedule at the time of any Departmental cost analysis.

  A one-time build comprising a public search interface, an authenticated administrative interface, CSV and JSON export, and an audit log, at 40 to 80 hours of development at $100 to $150 per hour loaded, costs $4,000 to $12,000, once. This is a single-table application over 746 rows.

  Implemented instead on systems the regulated professions have already funded, the cost is lower still. DOB NOW already stores designation status and gates access to DOB NOW: Safety on it, already authenticates every designee through eFiling, already processes payments, and already operates periodic renewal workflows for other credentials. Adding an initial and renewal fee to an existing credential object is a configuration change. A systems change order of $25,000 amortized across five years and 746 designations is $6.70 per designation per year. At $100,000 it is $26.81. At $150,000 it is $40.21.

  Infrastructure is not a defensible basis for a recurring fee at these levels. It rounds to zero. The only component capable of supporting a fee of this size is staff review labor, and the Department has published no estimate of it.

  I want to be clear that I am not arguing the Department should do this work for free, or that its staff time is worthless. I am arguing the opposite. Staff time is the only real cost here, it is the one thing the Department has not quantified, and it is the one thing that would make this rule defensible.

  THE CITY ALREADY MAINTAINS A LARGER REGISTER OF EXACTLY THIS KIND

  This is not a hypothetical comparison. The City of New York publishes a prequalified vendor register as downloadable structured data. As of the extract I am working from it contains 5,908 records covering 2,197 distinct vendors across 335 trade codes.

  Each record in that register carries fifteen structured fields: master trade code, trade description, vendor name, street address, city, state, ZIP code, telephone, facsimile, named contact person, minority business indicator, women business indicator, local business indicator, revenue indicator, and an expiration date.

  The three designation registers this rule proposes to charge for contain 746 records, are published as manually curated PDF files, and carry none of those fields. No status. No effective date. No expiration date. No structured format. No machine-readable publication. Two divergent QEWI files are published simultaneously with no statement of which controls.

  The City is therefore already maintaining, at roughly eight times the record count and across 335 categories rather than three, precisely the artifact the Department says it needs an annual fee from 641 licensed professionals to produce. That register carries an expiration date per record, which is the single field whose absence from the QEWI, QPSI and QRWI registers makes current status unverifiable.

  I ask the Department to state whether vendors are charged an initial or annual fee to appear and remain on the prequalified vendor register. If they are not, the Department should explain what distinguishes 746 designation records maintained by the Facades and Local Law unit from 5,908 vendor records maintained by the City’s procurement operation, such that the former requires a $320 annual charge per record and the latter does not.

  LEGAL FRAMEWORK

  Under settled New York law a regulatory fee must bear a reasonable relationship to the cost of the regulation it funds. A charge set materially above that cost and used to raise revenue is a tax, which a city may not levy without State authorization. Article 112 of Title 28, cited as authority for this rule, is a fee article. It authorizes fees, not revenue measures.

  I do not assert that these fees exceed the Department’s costs. I assert that the present record does not permit anyone to determine whether they do, including the Law Department and the Mayor’s Office of Operations in executing the certifications they signed on July 31, 2026. The Mayor’s Office of Operations certification attests that the rule minimizes compliance costs for the discrete regulated community. A licensed professional holding all three designations would pay $2,795 in initial fees and $940 annually thereafter, for three registrations verifying the same State license, the same good standing, and overlapping portions of the same resume, reviewed by the same unit. Ninety-three individuals hold more than one designation. The rule provides no combined registration, no reduced fee for an additional credential, and no common-elements provision.

  REQUESTS

  Publish, before adoption, the actual expenditure incurred by the Department in administering QEWI, QPSI and QRWI approvals in the last completed fiscal year, stated as a dollar figure with its components.

  Publish the itemized cost basis for each of the six proposed figures: activities included, estimated staff hours per activity, the staff classification and fully loaded hourly rate applied, and any non-personnel cost, identified separately.

  State whether any cost payable to an outside contractor, licensor, or software or platform vendor is included in the fee basis, and if so in what amount and to whom.

  State whether vendors are charged an initial or annual fee to appear and remain on the City’s prequalified vendor register, and if they are not, state what distinguishes 746 designation records from the 5,908 records on that register such that only the former requires an annual charge.

  State the authoritative population figures and reconcile them against the published registers and the 484 figure in the consultant’s report.

  State whether the fee is levied per designation or per person, and consider a reduced fee for second and third designations held by the same individual.

  State the basis for the $85 and $20 differentials between the QRWI figures and the other two, given that the application requirements in the proposed rule are identical clause for clause across all three.

  State whether the initial fee is refundable, in whole or in part, where an application is denied following the interview.

  Comment attachment
  C1.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:49am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Who conducts the interview this rule makes mandatory, and what qualifications must that person hold?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied.

  The existing rule provides that an applicant must demonstrate familiarity with the relevant codes and rules to the commissioner’s satisfaction, “including satisfactory performance on any written or oral tests the commissioner may require.” Sections 3, 4 and 5 of this proposal strike the word “including,” strike the words “or oral,” and substitute a requirement that the applicant demonstrate that familiarity “through an interview and satisfactory performance on any written tests the commissioner may require.”

  The Statement of Basis and Purpose describes this as clarifying that applicants must be interviewed in order to be approved. It is more than a clarification. Under the existing text, an oral examination is one tool the commissioner may use or decline to use. Under the proposed text, the interview is a mandatory precondition to registration, and under Section 3, subparagraph (c)(7)(v), it is a mandatory precondition to a currently approved QEWI keeping a credential already held. A discretionary tool has become a gate, and the oral test it replaces has been deleted from the rule.

  The rule creates the gate and says nothing about how it operates. It does not state who conducts the interview, whether that person is an employee of the Department, whether that person is a New York State licensed professional engineer or registered architect, whether that person holds or has held the designation being evaluated, whether more than one person participates, or whether any part of the interview may be conducted, designed or scored by a person outside the Department.

  It does not state what is evaluated. The substantive standard in the rule is familiarity with “the Construction Codes, laws and rules pertaining to facades and concepts specific to facade science.” There is no published syllabus, reading list, reference set, scope statement, or passing standard for that body of material.

  It does not state whether a record is made, whether the interview is recorded or transcribed, whether the applicant may obtain a copy, or how long any record is retained.

  It does not state whether an unsuccessful applicant receives a written determination, whether that determination states reasons, or whether it identifies the deficiency.

  It does not state whether reconsideration is available, whether a re-interview may be requested, after what interval, at what additional cost, or whether any administrative appeal exists.

  It does not state when the interview will be offered, or obligate the Department to schedule one within any period after a complete application or renewal application is filed.

  The consequence attached to this undefined process is not minor. Under subparagraph (c)(7)(v), failure to complete the interview by the applicable expiration date “will result in expiration of a qualified exterior wall inspector’s registration,” and under subparagraph (i) an unregistered person may not perform the examination at all. A currently approved QEWI can lose the ability to practice a regulated specialty on the basis of an unrecorded conversation, evaluated against unpublished criteria, by an unidentified evaluator, with no stated route to reconsideration and no obligation on the Department to have offered the appointment in the first place.

  I want to state plainly why the qualification of the evaluator matters to me, and I want to state it without reference to any individual.

  I hold a New York State professional engineering license. To obtain it I completed an accredited engineering degree, passed the Fundamentals of Engineering examination, accumulated supervised experience, passed the Principles and Practice examination, and became subject to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the State Education Department under Article 145 of the Education Law. I am asked, under this rule, to demonstrate technical competence to the satisfaction of a person whose own technical qualifications the rule does not specify at all. That asymmetry is the entire issue. If the Department’s position is that the interviewer will always be a licensed design professional with relevant experience, then writing that into the rule costs the Department nothing and resolves this comment. If the Department’s position is that the interviewer need not be a licensed design professional, the regulated community should know that before the rule is adopted.

  I raise a second point about the same asymmetry, again without reference to any individual. In adjacent Departmental rulemakings, technical requirements are being drafted around specific software and specific proprietary data schemas, and the public arguments advanced for those requirements have in my experience come from parties with a commercial interest in the schema being selected. In one instance an internationally standardized open exchange format under ISO 16739 was characterized to me as merely a geometry engine by a principal of a firm selling a competing proprietary schema. I make no allegation about that person and I am not asking the Department to act on my account of a conversation. I raise it because it is the reason I believe evaluation criteria and evaluator qualifications must be published rather than left to case-by-case judgment. Where criteria are unpublished, the person applying them is unaccountable, and where the person applying them may have a commercial position, the applicant cannot even identify the conflict, let alone raise it.

  The Department’s own consultant recommended the opposite approach in this exact area. The FISP Recommendations Report makes eleven recommendations. Two concern QEWIs directly: Recommendation 9, to improve the Department’s QEWI help desk system, and Recommendation 11, to develop and publish a QEWI Guide. The report recommends nothing resembling a registration fee, an interview gate, or a change to inspector experience requirements. Its QEWI-facing recommendations point toward published guidance and better support. This rule instead creates an unpublished evaluation with credential loss attached to non-completion, and charges for it. If the Department is acting on its consultant’s advice in this area, the record does not show it. If it is departing from that advice, the departure should be explained.

  PROPOSED TEXT AMENDMENT

  Insert the following as a new subparagraph after subparagraph (iii) of paragraph (7) of subdivision (c), and the corresponding subparagraphs of paragraphs (10) and (11):

  “Interview procedure. The Department must publish and maintain on its website the subject matter scope of the interview required by this paragraph, the criteria by which an applicant’s performance is evaluated, and the qualifications required of an interviewer. The interview must be conducted by one or more employees of the Department, at least one of whom must be a registered design professional. The Department must offer an interview appointment within sixty days of receipt of a complete application or renewal application. A determination that an applicant has not satisfied the requirements of this paragraph must be issued in writing, must state the specific basis for the determination, and must inform the applicant of the opportunity for a subsequent interview. An applicant may request a subsequent interview no earlier than thirty days after such determination, and no additional registration fee may be charged for such subsequent interview. A registration will not expire for failure to complete an interview where the Department has not offered the registrant an interview appointment prior to the applicable expiration date.”

  RATIONALE

  Every other competence gate this Department administers has published parameters. Publishing the scope costs the Department little and improves the quality of the applicants who appear. An applicant who knows the interview covers facade assembly types in the New York City building stock, report classification criteria, and the filing requirements of 1 RCNY 103-04 can prepare against that. An applicant who does not can only guess, and a guessing applicant consumes more of the staff time this rule is meant to conserve.

  A written determination stating reasons is also what makes the disciplinary provisions of subparagraphs (viii) and (ix) reviewable at all. The Department has proposed to import a formal disciplinary framework into these registrations. That framework presupposes a record. This one should have one too.

  Comment attachment
  C2.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:50am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Is the charge imposed by this rule a fee or a penalty?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied.

  This is a threshold question and the answer determines what showing the Department must make before adoption. I raise it because the rule as drafted does not commit to an answer, and the two halves of it behave differently.

  Under New York law a municipal charge falls into one of three categories, and each carries a different requirement. A fee must bear a reasonable relationship to the cost of the regulatory activity it funds. A tax requires State authorization, which a city cannot supply to itself. A penalty requires a violation, notice, and an opportunity to be heard.

  By citing Article 112 of Title 28, the fee article, the Department is asserting that these charges are fees. Three features of the rule do not behave like fees.

  First, the renewal charge is not tied to an identifiable service. An initial application involves resume review, verification, and under this proposal an interview. A renewal, as the rule describes it, involves confirming that the registrant’s State license remains current and in good standing. The rule identifies no other renewal activity, and proposes to charge $320 a year for it.

  Second, the consequence of non-completion is loss of the credential rather than a debt. Where a fee goes unpaid, the ordinary consequence is that the service is not rendered. Here, under subparagraph (v) of paragraph (7) of subdivision (c), failure to complete an interview results in expiration of the registration, and under subparagraph (i) an unregistered person may not perform the inspection at all. Loss of the ability to practice a regulated specialty is the consequence structure of a disciplinary sanction, not of an unpaid invoice.

  Third, the rule builds two routes to the same outcome and gives process to only one of them. Subparagraphs (viii) and (ix) provide for denial of renewal and for suspension or revocation under Administrative Code Sections 28-401.19 and 28-401.19.1, expressly following notice and an opportunity to be heard. Subparagraphs (v) and (vii) produce the identical outcome, in that the registrant may no longer perform inspections, by automatic operation of the rule, with no violation alleged, no notice, no hearing, and no determination. The route without process is the one triggered by failure to complete an interview that the Department schedules.

  Stated plainly, the money in this rule is justified as a fee and the consequence operates as a penalty, and the rule never reconciles the two.

  I am not asking the Department to abandon either the fee or the disciplinary framework. I am asking it to pick a characterization for each provision and accept the corresponding obligation.

  If these are fees, publish the cost basis, and make non-payment a curable lapse rather than an event that terminates a professional authorization. Credential loss should not attach to an administrative step whose timing the Department controls.

  If the credential-loss provisions are disciplinary, identify the violation and supply the notice and hearing that Sections 28-401.19 and 28-401.19.1 themselves require. The Department cannot import the sanction without importing the process.

  If the amounts are not derived from cost, then the charges are revenue measures rather than fees, and Article 112 does not authorize them.

  I made this same three-way request to the Department on proposed rule DOB-210, the incomplete inspections rule, in my comment filed August 5, 2026, where the same ambiguity appears between a charge described as cost recovery and a certification stating that the rule establishes no violation. I support DOB-210. I made the request anyway. The standard should not vary with whether I favor the rule.

  REQUESTS

  State in the final Statement of Basis and Purpose whether each charge imposed by Section 1 is a fee within the meaning of Article 112 of Title 28.

  State separately whether expiration under subparagraphs (v) and (vii) is intended as an administrative lapse or as a disciplinary sanction.

  If it is an administrative lapse, provide expressly in the rule text that it does not constitute discipline, is not reportable as discipline to any licensing authority, and does not require reinstatement proceedings.

  If it is a sanction, provide the notice, hearing, written determination, and review that a sanction requires.

  Comment attachment
  C3.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:51am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Is the FISP Recommendations Report the evaluation that Local Law 49 of 2025 charged the Department with performing, and if so, where is it on the Government Publications Portal?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. This comment alleges no wrongdoing by any person or firm. It concerns what the public record does and does not contain. Where a question is open on the public record I identify it as open rather than assert it as a finding. Most of what follows would be resolved by the Department stating a fact.

  Local Law 49 of 2025, Introduction 394-A of 2024, charges the Department with evaluating the appropriate time period for facade inspections, effective immediately, and sets the periodic interval for critical examinations at between six and twelve years effective October 1, 2026.

  The FISP Recommendations Report prepared for the Department by its consultant is dated December 10, 2025. Its Recommendation 3 proposes extending the baseline filing frequency from five years to six.

  Footnote 19 of that report, on page 15, states that the recommendations in the report “have been developed independently of Local Law 49 of 2025, legislated by the NYC Council,” and then recites what Local Law 49 did.

  That footnote creates the question. Either the report is the evaluation Local Law 49 charged the Department with performing, or it is not.

  If it is, then it is a statutorily mandated deliverable, it is not independent of Local Law 49, and Charter Section 1133 requires its submission to the Government Publications Portal maintained by the Department of Records and Information Services. It is not presently locatable there.

  If it is not, then the evaluation Local Law 49 charged the Department with performing is a separate document, and the same publication obligation attaches to that one. In that case I ask where it is.

  Either answer produces a document the public is entitled to have. I am not asking the Department for a favor or for a courtesy disclosure. I am asking it to comply with a publication requirement that already applies to it.

  This matters directly to this rule, and not only to the facade rule the Department has separately docketed. The Department has stated in bulletins, notices and public announcements that the consultant’s report is the FISP report and that it is developing updated FISP rules informed by it. This rule registers, prices, interviews and disciplines the professionals who perform those inspections. A member of the regulated community preparing a technical comment on inspector qualifications cannot evaluate whether the qualification changes proposed here are consistent with the Department’s own evidence base while that evidence base is not published where the law requires it to be published.

  I raise a second point about the report, and I raise it as a reservation rather than as an objection to this rule.

  I have read the report in full. Its eleven recommendations address the definitions of unsafe and of safe with a repair and maintenance program, administrative unsafe classification, baseline inspection frequency, abbreviated filing, enhanced inspection, reduced hands-on inspection, a drone pilot program, property access agreements, the QEWI help desk, violation notice presentation, and a QEWI guide. None of them recommends a registration scheme, a fee, an interview requirement, or a change to inspector experience requirements. I state that plainly because it cuts against my own concern, and the record should reflect it. The published report does not support this rule and I do not contend that it does.

  I have separately identified what I believe are four methodological defects in that report, concerning the treatment of buildings with no report filed as missing at random in the trend statistics when that population grew from zero to twenty-one percent of the building stock and is plausibly correlated with the risk being measured; the use of a dataset containing no variation in inspection interval to support a conclusion about the safety of changing the inspection interval; the use of a single cross-sectional snapshot to set a forty-year eligibility threshold without controlling for facade material or construction era, which the report’s own material analysis identifies as material to failure rates; and a fixed denominator in the Failure Risk Factor that systematically deflates the index for materials with more inapplicable degradation agents, which in turn feeds the selection of which facades receive enhanced inspection. Those objections are directed at the report and belong in the comment record for the facade rule the Department has announced as Item 16 of its FY2027 Regulatory Agenda, and I intend to file them there.

  I raise them here conditionally only. If the Department states that work performed under its facade consulting engagement informed any provision of this rule, I ask that the comment period be extended so that the report’s methodology may be addressed as part of the stated basis for that provision.

  I note that the consultant itself asks to be evaluated independently. The Report Qualifications section on page 109 states that its recommendations are advisory in nature and should be evaluated, modified or supplemented if used for any other purpose, and that responsibility for legislative and regulatory enactments rests solely with the entities that create them. The consultant is asking the Department to perform its own analysis. So am I.

  I note further, and to the report’s credit, that it discloses on its author page that its lead author is a registered QEWI. That disclosure is appropriate. It also demonstrates that disclosure norms already operate in this field, which makes their absence from this rulemaking record more conspicuous rather than less.

  REQUESTS

  State whether the FISP Recommendations Report dated December 10, 2025 is the evaluation of facade inspection intervals that Local Law 49 of 2025 charged the Department with performing.

  If it is, submit it to the Government Publications Portal as Charter Section 1133 requires and state the date of submission.

  If it is not, identify the document that constitutes that evaluation, state its date, and confirm its submission to the Government Publications Portal.

  Identify every report the Department is presently delinquent in submitting to the Government Publications Portal that bears on the facade, parking structure or retaining wall inspection programs, and state the date by which each will be submitted.

  Confirm whether any work product produced under any facade consulting engagement informed any provision of this rule, and if so, place it in the rulemaking record and extend the comment period.

  Comment attachment
  C4.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:51am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Which provisions of this rule were included in the FY2027 Regulatory Agenda, and if the Department does not answer correspondence sent to the contact persons named in that agenda, why are those names published?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied.

  The notice for this rule states: “The rule was included in the regulatory agenda for this Fiscal Year.”

  Item 2 of the Department’s FY2027 Regulatory Agenda, published pursuant to Charter Section 1042, is titled “Rule relating to QPSI, QEWI, and QRWI designations.” Its stated reason is “To establish a fee for applicants to obtain initial and annual renewal of Department designations.” Its stated anticipated contents are that the rule will “be amended to require an initial and annual fee to obtain and renew Qualified Parking Structure Inspector (QPSI), Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector (QEWI) and Qualified Retaining Wall Inspector (QRWI) designations.” Its stated legal basis is “Section 643 of the New York City Charter; Article 112 of Chapter 1 of Title 28 of the New York City Administrative Code.”

  Item 2 anticipates a fee and nothing else, and cites Article 112 alone.

  This proposed rule contains, in addition to the fee, the creation of a one-year registration with defined expiration cycles; subjection of registrants to denial, suspension and revocation under Administrative Code Section 28-401.19; summary suspension of up to fifteen days; a mandatory interview as a precondition to approval; a mandatory interview as a precondition to renewal for existing QEWIs, with expiration of the registration for non-completion; an increase in the QPSI experience requirement from three years to seven and a narrowing of qualifying experience from building structures to parking structures; and Article 114 as an additional source of authority. None of those appears in Item 2.

  I want to be precise about the legal consequence, because I am not claiming one that does not exist. Charter Section 1042(c) provides that failure to include an item in a regulatory agenda does not preclude action on it, and that inadvertent failure to explain the omission does not invalidate the rule. I am not asserting a defect that voids this rulemaking. The Charter says expressly that it does not.

  What Section 1042(c) does require is affirmative and unmet. It provides that if rulemaking is undertaken on a matter not included in the regulatory agenda, the agency “shall include in the notice of proposed rulemaking the reason the rule was not anticipated.” Charter Section 1043(b) repeats the requirement for the published notice. This notice contains no such statement. It states the opposite.

  This is cured in one sentence, and a sister agency has already shown the form. The Department of Transportation’s notice of proposed amendment to its Traffic Rules for fiscal year 2022 stated that the rule was included in that agency’s regulatory agenda for fiscal year 2022, “with the exception of the proposed amendment to 34 RCNY Section 4-08, which was not anticipated at the time such regulatory agenda was published.” That is the formulation Section 1042(c) contemplates.

  Why this matters here is practical rather than formal. A member of the regulated community reading the FY2027 agenda in May 2026 and monitoring for changes to inspector qualifications, disciplinary exposure, or practice authorization would not have found them under Item 2, because Item 2 announced a fee. The agenda is the mechanism by which the regulated community learns what is coming. It functioned as designed for the fee and did not function for the rest.

  THE CONTACT PERSONS PUBLISHED IN THE AGENDA

  Charter Section 1042(a)(5) requires each regulatory agenda to include “the name and telephone number of an agency official knowledgeable about each subject area involved.” The Department published those names. Item 2 names an Assistant Commissioner for Existing Buildings Compliance. Item 16 names the First Deputy Commissioner. Items 5 through 7 name the Director of Sustainability Policy and Legal Affairs. Item 14 names the Director of Revenue Planning and Compliance.

  On August 3, 2026 at 10:46 a.m. I wrote to the Commissioner and to the named contact persons for Items 2, 5 through 7, 14 and 16, at eleven Departmental addresses including the rules mailbox, raising the cost-recovery basis for the Item 2 designation fees, the register data integrity failures, and the Department’s delinquent reports on the Government Publications Portal. I asked three specific questions and requested a formal response.

  I received one automated reply, at 10:52 a.m., from the Department’s Local Law 97 helpdesk, assigning ticket number nyc-162664 and stating that staff would respond as soon as they could. I attached my technical exhibits to that ticket at 11:31 a.m. the same morning.

  As of the date of this comment I have received no substantive response, no acknowledgement from any named contact person, and no answer to any of the three questions. An inquiry about the Department’s rulemaking agenda was routed to a Local Law 97 helpdesk queue.

  I raise this in a comment on the rule rather than as a separate complaint because it bears directly on Charter Section 1043(e), which requires the agency to provide an opportunity to comment including outreach to the discrete regulated community, and to consider relevant comments before adopting a final rule. The Department published contact names for the express purpose of allowing the public to obtain information about anticipated rules. If those names do not produce answers, the requirement is being satisfied on paper only, and the technical questions that should have been resolved informally in May and June arrive instead as formal comments in September, which is worse for everyone including the Department.

  REQUESTS

  Identify which provisions of this rule were included in the FY2027 Regulatory Agenda and which were not.

  For those that were not, state the reason they were not anticipated, as Charter Section 1042(c) requires.

  If the Department’s position is that the registration scheme, the interview requirement, the disciplinary provisions and the QPSI experience change are all encompassed within the phrase “requirements for obtaining and renewing Department designations,” state that expressly, so that the regulated community understands the scope that phrase is being given for future agendas.

  State the Department’s procedure and target response time for substantive inquiries directed to the contact persons named under Charter Section 1042(a)(5), and provide a substantive response to my correspondence of August 3, 2026 on the public record for this rulemaking.

  Comment attachment
  C5.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:52am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  How was an emergency procurement approved for a term of one year extended to a projected conclusion in 2027, and where are the conflict and disclosure records for the firms engaged on the facade and energy programs?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. This comment alleges no wrongdoing by any person or firm. It concerns what the rulemaking record does and does not contain. Emergency procurements are sometimes extended and scopes sometimes evolve for legitimate reasons. Where a question is open on the public record I identify it as open rather than assert it as a finding.

  Every fact below is drawn from a document published by the City of New York or produced by the City in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.

  THE FACADE ENGAGEMENT

  On February 1, 2024 the Department’s Agency Chief Contracting Officer requested authorization for an emergency contract under Section 3-06 of the Procurement Policy Board Rules. The stated basis was the partial collapse at 1915 Billingsley Terrace on December 11, 2023. The letter requested approval to solicit an emergency contract “for an amount not to exceed $800,000.00 and for a period of one year.” The stated scope was broad, extending to evaluation of the regulatory framework, determination of whether gaps exist in the regulatory and enforcement scheme, and identification of what changes in Department operations, regulatory framework, enforcement mechanisms, training and outreach would be appropriate. The request was approved on February 7, 2024.

  The Billingsley Terrace investigation itself was conducted by the Department in coordination with the Department of Investigation and published as a forty-eight page report on November 25, 2024.

  The consultant was selected in May 2024. An award notice published in The City Record on July 15, 2024 records an award of $250,800, PIN 81024E0003001, in the Construction Related Services category, by the Emergency Purchase selection method, for licensed engineers to perform material research testing services, regulatory reviews, review and analysis of FISP reports, and to make recommendations.

  The resulting report is dated December 10, 2025.

  Two amendment requests appear in the records produced to me. Both recite the February 7, 2024 approval and the Billingsley Terrace incident. Both state that “the scope of the current investigation has evolved significantly due to the integration of newly approved testing protocols and a broader research mandate.” One projects that the investigation will conclude in March 2027 and one projects June 2027.

  An emergency procurement is authorized precisely because immediacy forecloses competition. The February 1, 2024 letter stated that the results needed to be known as soon as possible. A projected conclusion in 2027 is a different undertaking from the one on which the emergency was declared, and the amendment letters continue to describe the work as the investigation of the Billingsley Terrace incident notwithstanding that the Billingsley Terrace investigation was completed by the Department and published in November 2024.

  THE TERM LIMIT THAT APPLIED WHEN THIS PROCUREMENT WAS APPROVED

  At the time this emergency procurement was approved on February 7, 2024, the governing framework contemplated emergency contracts of up to one year. The Department’s own request letter asked for approval “for a period of one year.” An engagement approved on February 7, 2024 and projected to conclude in March or June of 2027 runs approximately three years and one to four months.

  My question is therefore narrow and does not depend on any subsequent change in the law. Under what authority was the term of this emergency procurement extended beyond the one-year period for which it was requested and approved, who approved each extension, and on what date was each extension approved?

  I note, and I want to be precise about its application, that the Council has since legislated on exactly this problem. Local Law 71 of 2026, Introduction 2-B, sponsored by the Speaker and by Council Members Wong, Louis, Lee, Salaam, Brewer, Brooks-Powers and Ariola, was enacted March 27, 2026 and amends the Charter in relation to approval for emergency procurements and submission of contracts for audit. It limits the term of an emergency contract to ninety days absent prior approval from both the Comptroller and the Corporation Counsel for a longer period, requires an explanation of why a longer term is necessary to avoid or mitigate a serious danger to life, safety or property, and requires emergency contracts to be submitted to the Comptroller for audit within fifteen days of execution.

  Section 3 of that local law provides that it takes effect forty-five days after becoming law, which is May 11, 2026, and that section one applies only to an emergency procurement approved by the Comptroller and the Corporation Counsel after that date. By its own terms, therefore, section one of Local Law 71 of 2026 does not reach a procurement approved on February 7, 2024. That is an ordinary prospective-application clause and I draw no inference from it about any sponsor or any Council Member. I state it here so that the Department is not put to the trouble of making the point in response.

  Two questions remain open on the face of that provision, and I ask them rather than assert answers. First, whether the prospective limitation in section 3 attaches only to section one of the local law or to its other provisions as well, including the audit submission requirement. Second, whether the approval of an extension to a pre-existing emergency procurement, if any such approval was given after May 11, 2026, constitutes an emergency procurement approved by the Comptroller and the Corporation Counsel after that date within the meaning of section 3.

  I am asking the Department to state, on this record, the current not-to-exceed value of that engagement, its current end date, the authority relied upon for each extension, and what deliverables have been produced under it since December 10, 2025. Approximately eighteen months of work under a scope expressly covering the regulatory and enforcement scheme, enforcement mechanisms, and training and outreach is not in the public domain. The certifications for this rule were executed July 31, 2026, within that interval.

  PREQUALIFIED POOLS EXIST FOR THE DISCIPLINES THIS ENGAGEMENT COVERS

  The City maintains a prequalified vendor register organized by trade code. It contains categories that correspond directly to the work described in the February 1, 2024 emergency request: Building Envelope Design, which lists five prequalified firms; Building Forensic Engineering, which lists three; and Engineering Civil and Structural, which lists sixty-nine. It also contains Engineering M/E/P, which lists fifty-five.

  The firm selected under the facade emergency procurement does not appear anywhere in that register, under any trade code, in the extract available to me.

  I want to state clearly what I am not saying. Emergency procurement under Section 3-06 of the Procurement Policy Board Rules does not require prequalification, and the absence of a firm from the prequalified register is not a disqualification, a criticism of that firm, or evidence of anything improper. Prequalification lapses, firms decline to renew, and specialist expertise frequently sits outside a general register.

  What it does bear on is the necessity and the duration of the emergency route. The City had, at the time of the declaration, standing prequalified pools in envelope design, building forensic engineering, and civil and structural engineering. If the emergency in December 2023 was genuine and immediate, which I do not dispute, the question is why the engagement then continued outside competitive procurement for three years rather than being recompeted through those pools once the immediate phase concluded. The Billingsley Terrace investigation itself was completed in-house and published in November 2024.

  That is the question I am asking. It is answerable in a sentence and it implies nothing about any vendor.

  THE ENERGY ENGAGEMENT, RAISED HERE BECAUSE THE PATTERN IS THE SAME

  Contract CT181020268807803 with 2050 Partners LLC, contracting agency Department of Buildings, carries a current and original value of $1,600,000 with $270,320 spent to date and $285,380 encumbered under Professional Services Other. Its purpose field reads LL97 STUDIES. Its award method is Intergovernmental Procurement, with one solicitation and one response. Performance began March 6, 2026. It was registered June 8, 2026, ninety-four days after performance began, and appears on the Comptroller’s Late Contracts Dashboard. Its end date is June 30, 2027. Its single spending transaction to date is dated August 3, 2026, charged to the Sustainability unit.

  The notice of award published in The City Record on June 15, 2026 at page 2534 describes the services as Technical, Policy, and Program Design Support for Market Development Programs, which is not the same undertaking as studies. The City Record notice lists the vendor in Orinda, California and the Comptroller’s record lists a Los Angeles address corresponding to an office of the firm that acquired 2050 Partners LLC in a transaction announced September 17, 2025, approximately six months before the contract start date. The notice of award cites no Procurement Policy Board Rule subsection and identifies no underlying governmental contract, unlike other award notices published in the same issue.

  I raise that engagement in a comment on this rule for one reason. The Department is presently proposing, in the concurrent Energy Conservation Code rulemaking, a compliance path that requires the use of a single category of NYC-specific software approved by the building official. That is vendor selection by rule. It is happening in the same fiscal year, out of the same Department, alongside a consultant engagement whose deliverables are not public. This rule creates a different gate for the same professionals. My concern is not any particular firm. It is that the Department is building gates in several rules at once, and disclosing the basis for none of them.

  I want to answer directly a question the Department may reasonably ask, which is what open-source availability has to do with a designation fee. The answer is that in both rulemakings the Department is asking licensed professionals to pay for, or route their practice through, an arrangement whose cost and provenance the Department has not disclosed. Where an internationally standardized open exchange format already exists and is in industry use, a rule that instead requires a specific approved implementation needs a published rationale and published, tool-neutral acceptance criteria. I have asked for those in that rulemaking. I am asking here only for the analogous thing: publication of what the money pays for and who receives it.

  THE DISCLOSURE RECORDS

  I submitted a Freedom of Information Law request seeking the conflict of interest and disclosure records associated with these engagements. I have been advised that determining whether a specific form exists will take in excess of four months. I have separately requested the status of the Department’s delinquent reports and have been waiting approximately six months.

  I sought guidance from the New York State Committee on Open Government on three questions arising from a related production. Its Senior Attorney advised, on July 16, 2026, that the names of vendors solicited constitute factual material and that withholding such names as deliberative content would be inconsistent with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Law; referred me to Advisory Opinion 19866 on the obligation to segregate and disclose factual content within otherwise exempt exchanges; and advised that purely categorical denials are inconsistent with the requirements of the law and that agencies are required to conduct record-specific content review to determine the extent to which each claimed exemption applies.

  I am not asking the Department to resolve a Freedom of Information Law dispute in a rulemaking proceeding. That belongs in other processes and I am pursuing it there. I am asking that the rulemaking record for this rule disclose whether outside work informed it, because Charter Section 1043(e) requires the Department to consider relevant comments before adopting a final rule, and the regulated community cannot direct comment to material it cannot see.

  REQUESTS

  State the current not-to-exceed value, current end date, and number of extensions of the facade consulting engagement approved February 7, 2024, and the authority relied upon for each extension.

  State the date on which each extension of that engagement was requested and the date on which each was approved, and identify the offices that approved each.

  State under what authority the term of that engagement was extended beyond the one-year period for which it was requested and approved.

  State whether that engagement or any extension of it has been submitted to the Comptroller for audit, and if so on what date.

  State whether the Department considered recompeting the continuing portions of that engagement through the City’s prequalified vendor pools for Building Envelope Design, Building Forensic Engineering, or Engineering Civil and Structural after the immediate emergency phase concluded, and if not, why not.

  Identify what deliverables have been produced under that engagement since December 10, 2025, and state whether any bears on inspector qualifications, registration, discipline, or fees.

  State whether any consultant, contractor, or outside party performs, will perform, designed, or scored any part of the review, interview, or written testing contemplated by this rule.

  State whether any cost payable to an outside party is included in the fee basis for the charges proposed in Section 1.

  Confirm whether any organizational conflict of interest screening was performed with respect to any consultant engagement bearing on the facade or parking structure inspection programs, and state where the result may be inspected.

  State whether any person who participated in developing the technical requirements of this rule holds, or is employed by a firm whose personnel hold, QEWI, QPSI or QRWI status.

  If the answer to any of the preceding is that outside work informed this rule, place the work product in the rulemaking record and extend the comment period so the regulated community may direct comment to it.

  Comment attachment
  C6.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:52am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  What disciplinary action is the Department presently unable to take against a qualified inspector that this registration scheme would enable?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied.

  The Statement of Basis and Purpose gives one reason for the registration requirement. It states that Rule 101-07 is amended to require registration of QEWIs, QRWIs and QPSIs “to allow the Department to more easily take any necessary disciplinary action against them.”

  I am not opposed to the Department holding disciplinary authority over these inspectors. It should have it, and it should use it. My comment is that the stated justification is not supported on the Department’s own record.

  Following the partial collapse at 1915 Billingsley Terrace on December 11, 2023, the City announced that it had suspended the associated professional engineer’s authority to inspect exterior walls of buildings and was seeking to permanently revoke that authority through the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. That engineer was subsequently suspended from conducting facade inspections for two years and fined $10,000, and the matter was referred to State authorities for possible further disciplinary action.

  All of that occurred under the existing framework, before any registration scheme existed, and the suspension was announced within days of the incident.

  If registration would have made that process faster, cheaper, more certain, or more durable, the Department should say how, and identify the specific limitation in the existing framework that this proposal cures. That statement would strengthen the rule considerably and would cost the Department a paragraph.

  If the actual difficulty lies elsewhere, the remedy may lie elsewhere too. If the difficulty is that the Department cannot reliably determine who currently holds a designation, that is the register problem I described in my first comment on this rule, and it is solvable by publishing a structured, status-bearing, machine-readable register synchronized against the State Education Department’s authoritative license data. That does not require an annual fee. If the difficulty is that contact information for designees is stale, an annual renewal cycle would indeed cure it, and the Department should say so, because that is a real and modest justification that the present text does not offer.

  I raise one further point about proportionality. Subparagraph (ix) of each amended paragraph invokes Administrative Code Section 28-401.19.1, and subparagraph (viii) invokes Section 28-401.19, which authorizes a fine of up to twenty-five thousand dollars for each finding of violation. The rule does not state whether that monetary exposure is imported along with the grounds. In the Billingsley matter the Department imposed a fine of $10,000 under the existing framework. If this rule creates exposure of up to twenty-five thousand dollars per violation for individual licensed professionals, that is a substantial change and the Mayor’s Office of Operations certification that the rule minimizes compliance costs should address it.

  REQUESTS

  State specifically what disciplinary action the Department is presently unable to take, or can take only with difficulty, that this registration scheme would enable, and identify at least one concrete limitation in the existing framework that the proposal cures.

  State whether the monetary penalty authorized by Administrative Code Section 28-401.19 applies to these registrations.

  If the operative difficulty is the currency or reliability of the Department’s designation records, state that, and state whether a structured public register synchronized against State license data would address it without an annual charge.

  Comment attachment
  C7.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:53am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Why does a qualified parking structure inspector now need seven years of experience while a qualified retaining wall inspector still needs three, and why is every currently approved parking structure inspector exempt from the new requirement?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied.

  The existing rule defines a qualified parking structure inspector as an engineer as defined in Section 28-101.5 of the Administrative Code with three years of relevant experience with building structures. Section 2 of this proposal changes that to seven years of relevant experience with parking structures. The change is twofold: the duration is more than doubled and the qualifying subject matter is narrowed. Subparagraph (v) of paragraph (11) of subdivision (c) exempts every inspector approved before the effective date from the new requirement.

  I separate two questions: whether seven years is the right number, and whether the record explains it.

  On the first I take no position, and I want to be fair to the Department’s likely reasoning. A parking structure presents a distinct inspection problem. Repeated freeze-thaw cycling, chloride-induced reinforcement corrosion driven by de-icing salt transfer from vehicles, post-tensioned slab conditions that cannot be evaluated visually, and traffic topping and expansion joint systems whose failure modes are not intuitive to a general structural practitioner all differ materially from facade or retaining wall work. A judgment that this warrants specialist experience is entirely defensible.

  On the second, the Statement of Basis and Purpose restates the amendment and stops. That is a description, not a basis.

  Three specific questions follow.

  First, is seven years of parking-structure-specific experience attainable by a new entrant? The Periodic Inspections of Parking Structures program arises from Local Law 126 of 2021, with the first cycle beginning in 2022. Subparagraph (ii) permits relevant experience obtained in any United States city or jurisdiction, which mitigates the concern, and parking structure condition assessment plainly predates the New York City mandate. The Department should nonetheless confirm that it has assessed whether a sufficient pipeline of qualifying engineers exists, and on what evidence.

  Second, what is the combined effect of raising the bar and exempting the incumbents? All currently approved parking structure inspectors are grandfathered, including any approved on the basis of three years of general building structure experience, which is to say potentially all of them. The new requirement therefore binds only new entrants. Whatever the technical merit of seven years, the structural effect of this drafting is to close a small market to new competitors while protecting everyone already inside it.

  If the seven-year standard reflects the Department’s judgment about the competence necessary to inspect a parking structure safely, then the incumbents who do not meet it present the same public safety question, and the exemption needs a stated justification. If the incumbents’ existing experience is adequate, then the case for seven years as a floor for new applicants needs one. Reliance interests are a perfectly good justification for grandfathering. If that is the justification the Department means to invoke, it should say so, and I would not object to it.

  Third, why do the three designations scale differently? After this amendment a QEWI requires seven years with facades over six stories, a QPSI requires seven years with parking structures, and a QRWI requires three years with retaining walls over ten feet, unchanged. A retaining wall failure is not obviously a lesser hazard than a parking structure failure. If the QRWI standard is being left at three years deliberately, the basis for the distinction should be stated. If it is being left at three years because this proposal simply did not reach it, that should be said too.

  REQUESTS

  State the technical basis for the seven-year figure and for narrowing qualifying experience to parking structures, whether it derives from a study, from Departmental enforcement or filing-quality data, from comparison to other jurisdictions, or from professional judgment, and identify the source.

  State the basis for exempting currently approved parking structure inspectors, and confirm whether a transitional alternative was considered, such as requiring an incumbent who does not meet the new standard to complete the interview required by subparagraph (iii), as the rule already requires of currently approved exterior wall inspectors.

  Consider an equivalency provision crediting documented experience in closely related structural condition assessment toward the seven-year requirement, including post-tensioned concrete evaluation, chloride contamination and corrosion assessment, and comparable exposed reinforced concrete structure inspection, in accordance with published criteria.

  State whether the three-year requirement for retaining wall inspectors was evaluated in this rulemaking.

  Comment attachment
  C8.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:53am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Where is a charge against a registrant heard, and what becomes of subdivision (d) of Section 101-07?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied. I raise this as a drafting and clarity question and not as an objection to the Department holding disciplinary authority over these inspectors.

  Each of the three amended paragraphs adds a subparagraph (viii) permitting the Department to refuse renewal on any ground that would constitute a basis for denial, suspension or revocation pursuant to Administrative Code Section 28-401.19, and a subparagraph (ix) permitting corrective action including probation, suspension or revocation in accordance with Section 28-401.19.1, with a summary suspension of up to fifteen days where public safety may be imminently jeopardized. Each subparagraph (ix) opens with the words “Notwithstanding subdivision (d) of this rule.”

  Four questions follow.

  First, on the scope of Article 401. Administrative Code Section 28-401.19 is captioned “Suspension or revocation of license or certificate of competence” and sits in Article 401 of Chapter 4 of Title 28, which is titled “Licensing and Registration of Businesses, Trades and Occupations Engaged in Building Work.” Its operative language addresses licenses and certificates of competence. QEWI, QPSI and QRWI status arises under Article 114 and under 1 RCNY 101-07, which governs approved agencies, and this rule is promulgated under Articles 112 and 114 rather than Article 401. Applying an Article 401 provision by cross-reference to a registration created under Article 114 may be entirely proper, but the Department should state on what basis, particularly given that the Law Department certification of July 31, 2026 attests under Charter Section 1043(d)(ii) that the rule is not in conflict with other applicable rules.

  Second, on monetary exposure. Section 28-401.19 authorizes not only suspension and revocation but a fine of up to twenty-five thousand dollars for each finding of violation. Subparagraph (viii) invokes that section as a source of grounds and subparagraph (ix) invokes Section 28-401.19.1 as a source of corrective action. Neither states whether the monetary penalty is imported along with the grounds. Given that this would be a new and substantial exposure for individual licensed professionals, the rule should resolve it expressly.

  Third, on subsection numbering. Subparagraph (ix) attributes to Section 28-401.19.1 the authority for corrective action including probation. The Department’s own rule at 1 RCNY 104-07(b) refers to Section 28-401.19.1 in connection with summary suspension. The subsections within Section 28-401.19 have been renumbered across code editions. I ask the Department to confirm that each cross-reference in subparagraphs (viii) and (ix) points to the provision intended in the current codification.

  Fourth, and most practically, on forum. 1 RCNY 104-07(a) provides that disciplinary hearings under Section 28-401.19 seeking suspension or revocation against a licensee or holder of a certificate of competence are held before the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. If subparagraph (ix) routes discipline of these registrations through Section 28-401.19, does it follow that these proceedings go to that tribunal? The rule does not say.

  Nor does it say what becomes of the existing process. Subdivision (d) of Section 101-07 is the existing disciplinary provision applicable to approved agencies. This proposal does not amend it, does not state whether it continues to apply to these three inspector types in any respect, and does not identify what procedural protections are gained or lost by the substitution. A registrant reading the final rule should be able to determine, without cross-referencing three separate documents, where a charge against them is heard, what notice they receive, what standard of proof applies, and what review is available. The same gap appears in subparagraph (viii), which states that refusal to renew follows notice and an opportunity to be heard without identifying the forum, the timeframe, or the form of that hearing.

  REQUESTS

  State the basis on which Article 401 provisions are applied to registrations created under Article 114.

  State expressly whether the monetary penalty authorized by Section 28-401.19 applies to these registrations, and if so, address it in the Charter Section 1043(d) compliance cost certification.

  Confirm the accuracy of each cross-reference in subparagraphs (viii) and (ix) against the current codification.

  State in the rule text the forum in which proceedings under subparagraphs (viii) and (ix) are heard, and state whether and to what extent subdivision (d) of Section 101-07 continues to apply to qualified exterior wall, parking structure and retaining wall inspectors.

  Comment attachment
  C9.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:54am

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  When does this rule take effect, and what may a registrant do during a lapse?

  I am a New York State licensed professional engineer, License No. 107881, commenting in an individual capacity on proposed rule DOB-216 / 2026 RG 048. No allegation of misconduct by any individual is made or implied. This comment addresses three transition defects that I believe are drafting oversights rather than policy choices, and each is curable before adoption.

  THE RULE CONTAINS NO EFFECTIVE DATE AND ITS TWO DATING PROVISIONS DO NOT ALIGN

  Subparagraph (i) of each amended paragraph provides that beginning on January 1, 2027 an inspection must be performed by or under the direct supervision of an inspector registered with the Department. Subparagraph (v) of each amended paragraph provides that current inspectors shall be considered registered as of the effective date of this rule amendment. The proposed rule contains no effective date provision. The Statement of Basis and Purpose refers to January 1, 2027, but that is description rather than an operative provision and it does not appear in the rule text.

  If the rule takes effect before January 1, 2027, current inspectors are deemed registered during a period in which registration is not yet a precondition to inspecting, which is harmless but unacknowledged. If the rule takes effect on or after January 1, 2027, subparagraph (i) imposes a registration requirement as of a date on which, by subparagraph (v)’s own terms, no one has yet been deemed registered. The Department obviously does not intend to strand its entire designated population, but the text as drafted permits that reading, and a rule should not depend on the reader supplying the agency’s intent.

  There is a related compression problem. The first renewal window for license numbers ending in 0, 1, 2 or 3 runs February 1 to March 31 with expiration on May 1. For a rule effective January 1, 2027, that is approximately thirty days of notice to the first cohort, in the same window in which some of them must also complete a first-ever interview. The Mayor’s Office of Operations certification states that the rule establishes certain time periods for renewal which should give time to comply after the rule effective date. For the first cohort in the first cycle, that period is approximately thirty days.

  I request that an express effective date provision be added, that subparagraph (v) be conformed to subparagraph (i) by substituting a single stated date, and that in the first renewal cycle only, inspectors whose license numbers end in 0, 1, 2 or 3 be permitted to renew on the schedule applicable to the 4, 5 and 6 cohort, so that every registrant receives a comparable first compliance period.

  FIRST CYCLE INTERVIEW CAPACITY

  The Department reports 501 qualified exterior wall inspectors and does not state how many have previously been interviewed, so commenters cannot size the population requiring a first interview. If a material share of that population must be interviewed and license numbers are distributed roughly evenly across final digits, on the order of two hundred interviews would fall due before May 1, 2027, with further cohorts by August 1 and November 1, alongside mandatory initial interviews for every new applicant in all three categories.

  As drafted, expiration follows from failure to complete the interview without regard to cause. An inspector who applies on the first day of the renewal window and is never offered an appointment is in the same position as one who does not apply at all. Nothing in the rule obligates the Department to offer an appointment within any period, and nothing preserves the registration where the delay is the Department’s.

  The consequence is not confined to the individual. An inspector whose registration lapses cannot file reports. Buildings mid-cycle would need to retain a replacement, re-scope, and in some cases re-inspect. Where an unsafe condition has been filed and a sidewalk shed is in place pending repair and re-inspection, a lapse in the inspector of record is not a paperwork problem.

  I request that the Department state the number of currently approved exterior wall inspectors who have not previously been interviewed, state its interview capacity plan for the first cycle and whether the fee revenue is intended to fund it, provide that a registration does not expire where the Department has not offered an interview appointment before the expiration date, and consider phasing the first-time interview obligation across the first two renewal cycles rather than the first.

  LATE RENEWAL

  Subparagraph (vii) of each amended paragraph permits an individual whose registration has expired to apply for late renewal within three months after the expiration date. It creates a status without describing it.

  The rule does not state whether the individual may perform inspections during the lapse period. Subparagraph (i) provides that an inspection must be performed by an inspector registered with the Department, which suggests not, but the point should not be left to inference given the consequences.

  It does not state whether a report filed during the lapse and subsequently accepted is valid, or whether a late renewal operates retroactively to the expiration date.

  It does not state what fee applies to a late renewal. Section 101-03 as amended lists an initial fee and a renewal fee and no late fee. If the renewal fee applies, there is no consequence to lapsing beyond the practice interruption. If the initial fee applies, the rule should say so.

  It does not state what happens after three months, and in particular whether an individual must then apply as a new applicant subject to the new experience requirements. This matters most for a parking structure inspector approved under the three-year standard, whose exemption under subparagraph (v) is keyed to approval prior to the effective date of the rule amendment and would appear to be lost on a lapse.

  It does not address an inspection performed while the inspector was registered but filed after expiration, which is a routine occurrence given the interval permitted between examination and filing.

  I request that subparagraph (vii) of each amended paragraph be revised to state whether inspections may be performed during a lapse, what fee applies to late renewal, whether late renewal operates retroactively, the status of an inspection performed before expiration and filed after, and the consequence of failing to renew within three months, and that a late renewal fee be added to Section 101-03 if one is intended.

  Comment attachment
  C10.pdf

  Comment added August 11, 2026 11:54am

• Anonymous

  Will the qualified inspectors be responsible for identifying environmental concerns (asbestos, lead, mold)? If not, who would be the responsible party for identifying and testing?

  Comment added August 12, 2026 3:10pm

• Yosep Blake Bak - NYS PE 107881

  Yosep Blake Bak, NYS PE 107881 – 2023/05/30
  Olga Suto, NYS RA 034079 – 2010/05/06

  No licensed professionals should produce work that they cannot put their name behind, especially if it’s lowering public safety standards or adding more burden to younger licensees.

  I stand behind every one of my actions because I actually fear history.
  So should you.

  Let the records show that the Department of Buildings agenda for 2027 lists Olga Suto as the person of contact but I have yet to hear back regarding ANY of the questions.

  If you want to create and impose the new “Olga Fee” that didn’t exist when you were younger, shouldn’t you at least be in compliance and submit deliverables that the city already paid for?

  why kick the ladder?

  I am not asking about the multiple inference errors from Thornton Tomasetti’s report.

  I am not talking about the emergency contract that explicitly cites the 1915 Billingsley Collapse, which DOB already produced the internal report, or how that emergency contract was extended twice over with payment schedule for TT extending out to 2027, or how that information only became available after multiple FOIL requests.

  Five questions. Each cites the provision requiring the answer.

  1. If this is a fee, where is the cost basis?

  $960 initial and $320 annual for QEWI and QPSI; $875 and $300 for QRWI. Over twenty years: $7,040 per designation, $20,655 for a professional holding all three, roughly $241,180 per year across the 758 designations the Department reports. The published justification is one sentence.

  A charge exceeding the cost of the regulation it funds is a tax, which the City cannot levy without State authorization. Article 112 authorizes fees, not revenue. In DOB-210, open the same month, the Department priced 44,000 incomplete inspections at over $2 million, about $45 per field visit. That rule has a cost figure.

  2. If no cost figure exists, what did the certifications measure?

  On July 31, 2026 the Mayor’s Office of Operations certified under Charter Section 1043(d) that the rule minimizes compliance costs, and the Law Department certified it contains a clear explanation of the requirements imposed.

  3. If the December 10, 2025 consultant report is the Local Law 49 evaluation, where is it on the Government Publications Portal?

  Local Law 49 of 2025 charges the Department with evaluating the facade inspection interval. That report addresses the interval and states at footnote 19 that it was developed independently of Local Law 49. Charter Section 1133 requires submission. If it is not the evaluation, where is the evaluation?

  4. If a consultant review exists, where is it?

  Item 16 of the FY2027 Regulatory Agenda states a forthcoming facade rule will incorporate changes suggested by a Department consultant’s review. Charter Section 1043(b) requires the notice to state the basis of the rule. I reported four methodology concerns in that report in writing and received no response.

  5. If Item 2 anticipated only a fee, where is the statement required by Charter Section 1042(c)?

  Item 2 cited Article 112 alone. The rule also creates a one-year registration, imports Section 28-401.19 suspension and revocation, adds summary suspension, conditions renewal of an existing credential on an interview with no published criteria and no stated qualification for the interviewer, and raises QPSI experience from three years to seven. Section 1042(c) requires the notice to state why unanticipated matter was not anticipated. This notice states the rule was included in the agenda.

  Nothing above asks for anything confidential. Each document named is required to be published by a provision cited above, and each was paid for with public funds.

  So where are they?

  Comment attachment
  Olga-Fee.pdf

  Comment added August 13, 2026 9:09am