In Defense of the DOB — Well Sort Of...

Like every other renovator in the borough of Brooklyn, I spend a disproportionate amount of time attempting to work with the DOB. The glacial speed at which they work, the redundancy required to move anything forward is a cross between candid camera gone horribly wrong and a very dark, reality TV show.

When we filed for our permit back in August, Paul the architect and the expediter were told that the first appointment with an examiner would be 11/9/15. We since learned that they had assigned the file to an examiner who was taking a sabbatical - a lifelong journey to Mecca as it turns out.  Who assigns work to someone you know is going to be out of the office for over a month? Is that a new strategy for preventing backlogs?

Plan B was to refile the application as a self-certified application — which both the architect and the engineer agreed to do. We refiled and the application got flagged for zoning which we heard would probably take a week or so.

Time passed. Months in fact.

The original date of 11/9/15 arrived so Paul and the expediter decided to keep the appointment. In their allocated 20 minutes they only got through half of their list - primarily because they had to spend so much time proving it was a 2 Family house. But once Paul showed the CO and the rest of the documents they got that dismissed. But our time was up.

The next available appointment is 12/22/15 which means that it is highly unlikely we will get the addition built this year and we will have to close up shop, until next spring. Which means no income for me,  from a tenant in the Garden Apartment — until next summer. 

Meanwhile...

ConEd calls Ernie, my electrician to inform him, they are sending the SWAT team to pull my second meter, because I only have a 1 Family house - per the description on the DOB site, which is fed by the DOF Property Description Classification database. I was able to point Cora, the very patient ConEd supervisor to my CO and negotiated time to sort this all out.

So in a nutshell:

 I have a CO that say it is a 2 family

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I have a DOF document that says it is a 2 Family

a contract that says its a 2 Family, a Deed that says it is a 2 Family, A cover page for the recording with the registrars office that says it is a 2 Family.

But guess what?

Apparently, deep in the bowels of the Department of Finance there is a thing called a Building Property Description database. It feeds information from the DOF to the DOB. Most title companies don't query it when they file and record and most never change the property description. In fact, the description on my house hadn't been changed since the 60's. 

Now this database is so special... that it is not updated by the other databases. So the Department of Finance Description of my property is an A4 —1 Family Dwelling. And this is the description that is feeding the DOB and the rest of the city. it seems, the other databases in the world don't get data from the correct, ownership records or tax roll,s that are updated everyday, they get it from this separate and obscure database.

"So where do I go, who do I need to talk to,  how do I update this inaccuracy" I asked.

And the answer was, "well you can't — at least not now." 

Apparently accurate information is only entertained and accepted during a window from January to March. When I receive my tax bill in January, 2016, I can apply to change the DOF Property Description, but not a minute before then. Until then, I will have to do battle for my 2 Family house as the owner of a mislabeled 1 Family House. 

Now, I have a policy of admitting when I am wrong.

And I would like to go on the record, that apparently the blame I was placing on the DOB actually belonged and should have been attributed to the DOF. I find the whole thing beyond DUMB, but I'm just a homeowner and a taxpayer trapped in this bureaucracy, so what do I know?

~Laurie