When Mark Brotter dies, the inscription on his tombstone will read simply: “Thank God — no more plumbing Schedule B.”
Mr. Brotter, 55, is an expediter, an imprecise term that is used to describe the men and women whose workdays are spent queuing up at the Manhattan branch of the New York City Department of Buildings to file the documents and pull the permits that allow construction projects — your kitchen renovation and the high-rise next door — to go forward.
Mr. Brotter’s business card and stationery describe him as a “Buildings Department liaison,” but he’ll go with “architectural consultant” when strangers ask about his occupation and he doesn’t have time to explain. Those who want to annoy him call him a messenger. Those who really want to annoy him call him a runner.
“I’m basically a middleman,” he said. For its part, the Buildings Department insists on the title “filing representative.”
Expediters are hired by contractors, architects, homeowners and managing agents. Some are solo practitioners like Mr. Brotter, although on a large project he may take on a helper — an expediter for the expediter.
Others are employed by large firms that do nothing but expediting, or are on the staffs of architectural or engineering firms. In the early 1990s, expediters numbered 300 to 400; today there are more than 8,300. (Filing representatives must register with the Buildings Department and pay a $50 annual fee for the right to stand on lines at department offices.)
Fortunately, there’s plenty of work to go around. The number of jobs filed at the Department of Buildings in fiscal year 2013 rose by 4.9 percent from the previous year to a total of 72,288. In fiscal year 2014, 82,551 jobs were filed, a jump of 14.2 percent.
“The residential remodeling market follows the real estate market, and as we all know, the residential real estate market in New York City has been on fire,” said Marc Kerner, a general contractor and the owner of Infinity Construction. “The renovation purse strings have been loosened because people are feeling more confident about the economy.”
The keys to expediter success include comfortable shoes, optimism, an awareness of just which long line is the right long line and a willingness to show up at the Buildings Department long before dawn to be first on this or that list to see this or that examiner — the agency staff member who can green-light a construction job or stop it cold.
The impediments: ever-changing rules, delays in processing forms — though according to Department of Buildings data, wait times are growing shorter — and the fact that expediters are limited to three pieces of business each time they get up to a service window, whether that means three tasks for one project or one each for three discrete clients. Then it’s back in line.
“Nobody really wants to go down to the D.O.B.,” said George Quinn, 51, an expediter for 30 years. “A lot of people compare it to the D.M.V., but it’s much more complicated and there’s much more involved. The city has its ways. There are forms and they have to be filled out in a certain way. There are processes and procedures.
“You have to have a certain type of personality and some thick skin,” Mr. Quinn continued, “and know that if you don’t get it done today, you’ll get it done tomorrow.”
Architects and engineers can file their own plans, and some do. Contractors also can get their own permits if they choose. There is a special line for professionals. But through day-in, day-out exposure to the vagaries of the Buildings Department, expediters have a nuts-and-bolts grasp of the minutiae that may elude their bosses.
“They save us a lot of time,” Mr. Kerner said. “And they’re willing to go down to the Department of Buildings.”
Mr. Brotter’s life is a welter of forms: PW1 (plan/work application); TR1 (a technical report); TR8 (a technical report related to environmental issues); ACP5 (an asbestos report); PW3 (an affidavit that breaks down the cost of a job); and of course that infernal Schedule B.
“It has to be very exact. There are only so many ways to get it right and lots of ways to get it wrong,” said Mr. Brotter, whose jobs right now involve renovations on Central Park West and several apartment combinations, currently among the most popular projects.
So what precisely is the holdup with that kitchen renovation of yours? The architect’s plans and assorted documents (PW1, et cetera) have to be assembled. Certain documents have to be signed by the architect, the homeowner or shareholder, the building’s managing agent, and in some instances, the co-op board president. Sometimes, paperwork needs to be notarized. When Mr. Brotter is the expediter on a project, he’s the fellow filling out the forms, tracking down the signatories and, if the proposed project warrants it, collecting the appropriate documents from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
“Then, when the package is together, I bring it to the Buildings Department,” Mr. Brotter said.
And that’s when the lines and the waiting begin. According to the Buildings Department, the average time between filing a plan package and meeting with an examiner is 3.8 days. The paperwork may be approved at that appointment, “which doesn’t happen too often, but it happens,” Mr. Brotter said. “Or you get objections.”
Perhaps a form was filled out incorrectly. Perhaps the architect’s rendering didn’t clarify an egress or show handicap access to a bathroom.
So it’s back to the buildings department to pick up the package, make the necessary adjustments and schedule another meeting with that same examiner “to try to get him to remove the objections,” said Mr. Brotter, who moved 35 years ago to New York from Scranton, Pa., to work in the music industry and became an expediter because it fit in with his performing schedule. “And sometimes,” he continued, “they’re like, ‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ so you have to go back.”
Meanwhile, the client wants to start construction today and it’s not possible to meet with an examiner until next Friday. Or maybe next month. The time varies depending on the number of objections, what is involved in addressing them, and the availability of the very busy examiner.
“You go back and forth and back and forth,” said Scott Schnall, a professional engineer. “That could take one day or one million days. It’s true. The whole system is much more screwed up than you could ever imagine.” For years, there were no requirements to be an expediter, but in the early 1990s, the City Council mandated registration with the Buildings Department. Then, in May 2013, the department started requiring integrity training via an online tutorial. (Is it O.K. to buy lunch for a safety inspector? Or offer him Yankee tickets? Take him out for a beer?)
This May the department began requiring classroom work on topics like “The New York City Building Code,” “The New York City Energy Conservation Code” and “The New York City Zoning Resolution.” Those aiming to obtain Class 1 registration sit through a 16-hour training program. Only then are they deemed qualified to submit documents to and remove them from the Buildings Department.
People with higher ambitions — prospective Class 2 Code and Zoning Representatives — have a 36-hour course load, which, once successfully completed, allows them to appear before plan examiners.
The expediter’s fee varies depending on the outlay of time and the complexity of a job. The charge for securing a permit for a contractor ranges from $200 to $400; for filing a project, $2,000 to $4,500. Plans that must go before the Landmarks Commission are a more costly proposition, as are projects that involve the conversion of a commercial space to a residence.
If you think you can economize by being your own expediter, you can’t — unless, of course, you go take the required training.
On a recent afternoon, a standing fan gently stirred the air in Room 30 Customer Service at the Manhattan office of the Department of Buildings on lower Broadway. (Each borough has an outpost.) A long table held bottles of water, satchels, briefcases and stacks of file folders. Their owners, clutching thickets of paper, slumped in chairs, muttered into cellphones or stood near signs reading “Pre-filing line starts here” and “Data Entry and Records.”
Joel Ochoa, 23, an expediter whose mother is also in the business, had been at the Buildings Department for four hours on behalf of his employer, an engineering consultancy. “You have to learn to be patient,” Mr. Ochoa said. “There are people who got here earlier than me.”
One of them was Anwar Khan, who works for an architectural firm and who had arrived at 8 a.m. to deal with amendments to a plan. “We can be in line for two hours,” said Mr. Khan, who was waiting for a colleague to deliver paperwork so he could queue up again. “Always a line.”
David Daub, an architect, was planning to get a permit for a contractor colleague, but in the face of complications, was considering handing the job off to an expediter he had used in the past and who, by chance, was right across the room.
“There are times that I’ll hire an expediter and let them do what they do, and I’ll see how they do it and I can apply those skills and maybe I’ll go down to the D.O.B. next time,” Mr. Daub said. “It’s like watching the mechanic work on your car and maybe you can make the repair next time.” Plus, he added, “I enjoy the scene at the Buildings Department.”
Few share his enthusiasm. “My expediters can get to the D.O.B. at 5:30 a.m. and leave at 2 p.m. with nothing done,” said Mr. Schnall, the engineer. “In the real world when you have 20 things to do and you get them done, that’s success. In this world, when you get two things done you get excited.”
The Buildings Department has grievances of its own. “Some filing reps will schedule appointments with a plan examiner and won’t have the proper paperwork or just won’t show up,” said a staff member who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Things are easier at the department now than when he began standing in lines there 25 years ago, Mr. Brotter said.
“The department is always trying to improve things and generally they’ve made the process better, but they haven’t been able to eliminate expediters,” he said. “We’re a necessary evil.”