New Construction Safety Rules For New York City

Chrissie Cole

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New York City Buildings Commissioner, Robert LiMandri, unveiled a plan, including 40 new rules, intended to overhaul how high-rise construction and the City are regulated.

The new recommendations include tracking crane parts, engineers and crane owners must sign-off on repairs, better training inspectors and closer scrutiny of older equipment.

Officials are seeking a way to use a crane’s maintenance history and age online, similar in nature to Web sites that provide information regarding used automobiles.

Between March and May of 2008, nine people were killed in two tower crane collapses and more than a dozen others were killed in a series of deadly accidents.

The city responded with increased inspections, stopped work more often at sites and rewrote dozens of regulations that many in the industry said were onerous.

Since the accidents the industry has been crippled by the failing economy, with billions of dollars of projects canceled or postponed. Real estate experts said at a business conference Tuesday that developers were seeking to reduce construction costs by up to 25 percent to get projects off the ground.

Buildings officials said the new rules would are expected to take effect in the next few months.