Carlo Scissura
Paul Vallone
Today’s building industry has an enormous impact on New York City, despite the fact that many of the techniques and practices we employ are stuck firmly in the 20th century.
New technologies are being used in other cities around the country and the world, and if New York cannot embrace change, we’ll be left behind.
As we, unfortunately, saw last month when architect Erica Tishman was fatally struck by a piece of falling building facade, failure to modernize can have heartbreaking consequences.
Consider our current system for inspecting buildings. Under New York City’s Local Law 11, also known as the Facade Inspection Safety Program, buildings taller than 6 stories are required to have their facades inspected every five years.
For the more than 10,000 buildings throughout the five boroughs to which this law applies, a team of inspectors must erect and climb scaffolding and use a construction lift vehicle—or in some cases rappel down the sides of tall buildings—in order to assess facades' structural integrity.
More than 3,000 sites throughout the five boroughs are currently conducting work related to an inspection, and each of these inspections costs the city and building owners thousands of dollars.
There’s no question Local Law 11 helps keep New Yorkers safe by ensuring problems on a building’s facade are caught and fixed before failing pieces cause damage to property or, worse, injure a person. But the current process is ripe for innovation.
Drones—unmanned aerial vehicles—offer a 21st-century solution to reduce inspection time and cut construction costs. On sites around the country, drones equipped with sophisticated sensors and cameras fly around and above buildings to generate 3-D models and high-quality images.
What would take several days to accomplish under current conditions could take only minutes or hours when completed with a drone and a nearby operator, saving both time and money. Better yet, there’s no need for scaffolding, and half of the city’s 328 miles of scaffolding dotting our sidewalks—more than the distance from Central Park to Niagara Falls—was erected to perform facade inspections.
Drones on construction sites are becoming more common. Between 2017 and 2018, drone usage by the industry increased by 239 percent across the country. Whether it’s in the design, building, inspection or monitoring stages, construction is one of the top three uses for commercial drone services in America.
Given public housing's massive portfolio of buildings, it could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of using drones. With more than 1,500 buildings of 6 stories or more, NYCHA is the city’s single largest conductor of facade inspections. Each of those inspections costs the housing authority between $12,000 and $18,000 and takes several days to complete. Firms doing drone inspections in other cities estimate more than a 90 percent cost reduction for individual projects. With roughly 300 inspections per year, NYCHA could save millions of dollars just by using drones.
Sadly, this conversation is moot if New York doesn’t begin accepting more innovative methods. As it stands, all drone use within the five boroughs, including for commercial construction purposes, is illegal under a 1948 local law, despite the Federal Aviation Administration’s legalization of commercial drones in 2016. When the statute was written more than 70 years ago, it was to protect against the operation of large manned aircraft, like planes; today the antiquated legislation does little more than slow progress.
Together with our partners in government and the industry, it’s time we create a safe and sensible system that allows for commercial drone use.
We are working with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and other advocates to find a legislative solution that will allow building industry firms and other companies to save time and money through drone use.
First and foremost, the professionals currently performing inspections the old-fashioned way should be the ones trained in operating drones and analyzing the footage. And, of course, even with drones, nothing will completely replace the need for hands-on inspections for certain projects. But drones will allow us to more frequently and efficiently inspect buildings, reducing costs and creating fewer disruptions than traditional methods.
Drones also can help keep our workers safe. Whether it’s scaling a roof, climbing up scaffolding or accessing hard-to-reach locations on a site, construction workers often are required to perform dangerous tasks.
New technologies including drones, 3-D printing and modular construction are not going to disappear. They are being used successfully in cities around the world to build smarter, safer, faster and cheaper. New York should embrace change.
Paul Vallone is a city councilman whose district covers northeast Queens.
Carlo Scissura is the chief executive officer of the New York Building Congress.
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/op-ed/city-building-inspectors-should-adopt-drone-technology-avoid-further-tragedy
