How we find facade repairs that have not started

A case on our list is a New York City building with a filed cycle 10 facade report rated SWARMP or UNSAFE, owned privately, where the public Department of Buildings data shows no repair work since the report. We check every case against every job filing and permit, every week.

Our data: Method · Track record · Data sources & updates

The rules, step by step

1. The finding. We take the first cycle 10 report of every building in the DOB NOW facade filings and keep those rated SWARMP (safe with a repair and maintenance program) or UNSAFE. The report date is the filing date of that report. If a later amended report rates the building SAFE, the case is closed.
2. Public and quasi-public owners out. Buildings of NYCHA (including PACT/RAD conversions), the City, the State or federal agencies are removed: their repairs go through procurement or framework contracts.
3. Repair work since the report removes the case. We read the permits by the date they were issued, not the date the job was filed. A general construction or structural permit whose job mentions facade work (facade, masonry, brick, pointing, parapet, lintel, terra cotta, cornice, balcony, fire escape, exterior restoration and similar terms), issued on or after the report date, counts as work - including renewals of permits for jobs filed years earlier and sub-filings such as -S1 of large renovations. So does a new facade repair filing in DOB NOW or BIS.
4. Scaffolds are read by their purpose. A supported or suspended scaffold permit for repairs or restoration counts as work. A scaffold without a stated purpose also counts - we would rather drop an open case than list one that is taken. Access for inspection only (rope access, IRA, condition assessment) does not count.
5. Sheds are a signal, not work. A sidewalk shed or netting alone does not remove a case; it marks the case as urgent and starts the penalty estimate.
6. Major projects out. An active full demolition, new building, or alteration over $5 million that includes the building envelope is not a repair lead.
7. Earlier facade work is kept, with a note. If a contractor held a facade permit there, or a facade job was filed, in the 36 months before the report, the case stays open and is labelled "Open, firm known from earlier work" with the firm and the date.
8. Hints that never remove a case: new facade-related ECB violations after the report (the case gets hotter), a shed older than a year, and the DOB NOW safety violation status "Waived - Pending Dismissal" (often a correction or extension request - shown as a hint only).
9. Weekly re-check. Every Tuesday we reload the data and re-run steps 1-8 for every case. A case that drops off is logged with its reason (work under way, major project, corrected to SAFE, public owner); the track record shows the counts.

Buildings being demolished

Every week we also read the full demolition jobs in DOB NOW (job filings, w9ak-ipjd). If a SWARMP or UNSAFE building has a full demolition that is filed, approved, has its demolition permit issued or is signed off, with the last activity in the past 24 months, the case is removed: the building is coming down, so there is no facade repair to bid. Withdrawn filings are ignored. A partial demolition, or a new building that keeps existing parts of the old one (ALT-CO), never removes a case; it is shown as a hint in the case sheet, because the facade scope can change. In the current data, 3 SWARMP/UNSAFE cases were removed for a full demolition and 1 open case carries a partial-demolition hint. The demo shows the hint on one invented case.

Labels and priority

Priority orders the list. A = UNSAFE with a sidewalk shed or a new facade violation, or an UNSAFE report filed in the last 180 days. B = other UNSAFE cases, and SWARMP cases with a shed or a new violation. C = all other SWARMP cases. The reason is shown on every case.

The hand-checked sample

Before we built the list, we drew 30 buildings at random from the cases (stratified by borough) and checked each one by hand on Oct 20, 2026 - nine datasets, about ten lookups per building, filing by filing.

On Oct 21, 2026, after an independent review, we tightened the rules: a sidewalk shed's age now counts from the first permit of the same shed job (late renewals no longer reset the clock), Local Law 51 is applied only where the shed's initial permit was issued on or after Jan 12, 2026, a repair permit issued before the report that was still in force at the report counts as work under way, and DOB test records are excluded. We then drew a second random sample of 30 cases from the delivered list (stratified by borough and label, seed 20261022) and checked every permit and filing: none had repair work on file since the report. "Open" means open in public DOB data - work without a permit and contracts not yet filed cannot be seen.

The first, broader count missed six buildings where work was under way: renewed permits of older repair jobs, a repair hidden in a sub-filing of a large renovation, scaffolds for repairs, and one demolition project. Rules 3 to 6 above were written from exactly these cases and catch all six. The ranges are wide because the sample is small; we report them as they are. Week by week, the re-check and the "Already taken" reports tell us more.

Estimated job size

For each case we show the middle half (25th to 75th percentile) and the median of the estimated job costs that applicants declared on DOB NOW facade repair filings since 2021 for buildings of the same size class (1-5, 6-9, 10-14, 15-24, 25+ floors) in the same borough; with fewer than 20 filings in a cell we use the citywide figure for that size. Citywide, the median is $120,000 (middle half $39,000-$324,000, 7,501 filings). It is the applicant's estimate on the permit filing - not a bid, a contract value or the final cost.

Penalty risk: what the laws say and what we estimate

Local Law 48 of 2025 (Admin Code § 28-220.1): beginning with the second renewal of a shed permit issued after Jan 12, 2026, every renewal requires work on the condition; for each month in which work was not in progress, the owner may be liable per linear foot of shed - $10 if the shed has been up less than 3 years, $100 for 3 to 4 years, $200 for 4 years or more (capped at $6,000 per month). Exceptions: one- and two-family homes, and sheds for permitted new building, enlargement or demolition work.

Local Law 51 of 2025 (Admin Code § 28-220.2.1): where the initial shed permit was issued on or after Jan 12, 2026, the owner faces a penalty if complete construction documents are not filed within 5 months, a complete repair permit application within 8 months, or the repairs are not completed within 2 years. The DOB rule sets these at $5,000, $10,000 and $20,000; extensions can be requested with a contract and timeline.

The DOB rule 1 RCNY 102-07 has applied since Aug 13, 2026, and the Department of Buildings expects to begin imposing penalties in early 2027 (NYC Mayor's Office, Aug 20, 2026).

Our estimate: the shed age comes from the chain of DOB shed permits (BIS and DOB NOW) that ends with today's active permit. Shed length is not in public data, so we use the building front from PLUTO (lot front where the building front is missing) times the rate for that age, capped as the law says. We show this as "penalty risk, estimated per month without work" - not as a fine that is due. Whether a month counts as "without work" is decided by the DOB from the design professional's report, which is not public. For LL51 we show the three milestone dates only where the first shed permit falls on or after Jan 12, 2026.

Sources: Local Law 48 of 2025 · Local Law 51 of 2025 · 1 RCNY 102-07 (promulgated, effective Aug 13, 2026) · DOB Facade Inspection & Safety Program

Who is shown as contact

First contact: the inspection firm of record - the business name and address on the report. The engineer or architect who filed the report usually prepares the repair scope and invites contractors to bid; asking to be considered is the professional way in. Managing agent: the company registered with HPD (residential buildings with three or more units), with the number of other open cases it manages. Owner entity: the company that owns the building; individual owners are shown as "Individual owner". Names of people (inspectors, applicants, owners' representatives) are never shown.

Data sources

All datasets are published by the City of New York under the Open Data Law. We use them as published and modify them as described here. Facade Repair Radar is not affiliated with the NYC Department of Buildings.

Limits - what public data cannot show

• Work without a permit. Some repairs run as "ordinary repairs" without a DOB permit, sometimes only with a scaffold permit. Those we can only see through the scaffold.
• Contracts not yet filed. A signed contract shows up only when a permit is filed. Extension requests under LL51 require a contract but are not public.
• The DOB NOW and BIS web portals. We do not scrape them; the BIS website blocks automated access and DOB NOW needs a login. Everything comes from NYC Open Data.
• Timing. Open Data lags the DOB systems by a few days; our weekly run adds up to a week.
• Shed length and work progress are not public; penalties are estimates.

So a case can be taken even though nothing is filed. The share of "Already taken" reports is one of the numbers we track.

Two lists, no overlap

Our sister product FISP Radar serves facade inspection firms with buildings before their cycle 10 inspection. Facade Repair Radar serves contractors with buildings after a SWARMP or UNSAFE report is on file. A building is never on both lists at the same time. We take no commissions from anyone and do not pass leads between inspection firms and contractors. Inspection firms can ask us to hide their name in the contractor list.

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