FISP Remediation & Facade Compliance
A facade report is an engineer’s document. Turning it into finished repairs, getting the shed off your sidewalk and closing out the filing is a contractor’s job. That part is ours. Parapets, lintels, repointing, coping and wall rebuilds, on apartment buildings, commercial property and institutions across the five boroughs.
Cycle 10 runs from 21 February 2025 to 21 February 2030. Which window you file in depends on the last digit of your tax block number. Two of the three are open right now.
| Sub-cycle | Block number ends in | Filing window | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10A | 4, 5, 6 or 9 | 21 Feb 2025 – 21 Feb 2027 | Closing soon |
| 10B | 0, 7 or 8 | 21 Feb 2026 – 21 Feb 2028 | Open now |
| 10C | 1, 2 or 3 | 21 Feb 2027 – 21 Feb 2029 | Not yet open |
If your block ends in 4, 5, 6 or 9, your Cycle 10A report is due by 21 February 2027. That sounds like plenty of time. It usually isn’t. Masonry is seasonal work, because mortar needs temperatures consistently above roughly 40°F, so a report filed in the autumn with repairs attached realistically means a spring start. The buildings that wait until the deadline are the ones paying for winter enclosures, or filing late.
Local Law 11 of 1998 is the name most owners still use. The program it created runs today as the Facade Inspection Safety Program, or FISP, under the New York City Administrative Code. What it actually asks of you:
The inspection needs close-up examination from a scaffold or some other physical access at representative locations. Nobody can certify a whole facade from the sidewalk with a pair of binoculars. That access requirement is a good reason to line your inspector and your contractor up in the same season rather than two years apart.
Your QEWI puts the building into one of three conditions. If you understand nothing else about FISP, understand this part, because each one starts a different clock.
Condition 1
Nothing needs repair. You file, and you are done until the next cycle.
What you do: nothing. Just know that Safe is a classification buildings lose. Pointing put off, a coping joint left open, a lintel starting to rust. None of it is unsafe today, and all of it is why a building that filed Safe in Cycle 9 files SWARMP or Unsafe in Cycle 10.
Condition 2
Short for Safe With a Repair and Maintenance Program. The facade is not dangerous today, but your inspector has flagged conditions that will get there if nothing is done. The report names a date for the repairs, at minimum a year out from filing.
What you do: get those repairs done before the date, and documented. A SWARMP item left alone does not quietly expire. It comes back as Unsafe next cycle, which means a sidewalk shed, a 90-day repair clock and a civil penalty for having let it happen. SWARMP is the cheapest moment in the whole cycle to act. It is also the one boards defer most often.
Condition 3
Something on the building is a danger to the public. Your QEWI has to report it to the DOB immediately, and public protection goes up right away, usually a sidewalk shed and sometimes netting.
What you do: repair it. The expectation is that unsafe conditions get corrected within 90 days, with extensions granted where your QEWI can document real progress. The shed stays up, costing you money every month, until the repairs are finished and the DOB accepts an amended report upgrading the condition.
This is where we come in. Whichever condition you are in, the deliverable is the same: finished repairs, properly documented, sequenced so your QEWI can amend the filing as early as possible.
Facade reports read differently from building to building. The conditions behind them are remarkably consistent.
The most common source of unsafe findings in the city. A parapet weathers on both faces, and it is often the oldest unmaintained masonry on the building. We rebuild parapets that are leaning, cracked or open at the joints, reset or replace the coping, and install through-wall flashing and proper anchorage so the assembly sheds water instead of holding onto it.
Corroding steel swells and lifts the masonry above the opening. That is the stair-step cracking over windows you see on nearly every pre-war report. We shore the opening, pull the failed lintel, set new galvanized or coated steel with correct bearing and flashing, and rebuild the brick around it.
Repointing cut to proper depth with mortar matched to the original assembly, whether that is one elevation or the whole building. Plus cutting out and rebuilding brick that has spalled, bulged or lost its bond to the backup.
Anything that projects takes the most water, which is why these elements generate so many report items. We repair and reset stone and terra cotta, replace worn sills and copings with units correctly pitched and drip-edged, and stabilize cornices.
Spalling balcony slabs, slab edges and terraces get chipped back past the corrosion, the reinforcement cleaned or replaced, then rebuilt with repair mortar or placed concrete. Anything load-bearing gets coordinated with the engineer of record.
Failed perimeter and joint sealants, through-wall and window flashing, roof-to-wall details. Repair the masonry without fixing the water path and you will be filing the same conditions again in five years.
Owners think of a FISP project as the price of the masonry. On a job that drags, it usually is not. A shed carries a permit and a monthly rental, and on a building with ground-floor retail it costs you visibility and tenant goodwill on top. Walk any avenue in this city and you will pass sheds that went up for a 90-day repair and have been standing three years. Every one of those is a project that stalled.
The shed comes down when the unsafe conditions are repaired, your QEWI re-inspects, and the DOB accepts an amended report upgrading the condition. So the fastest route to removal is not the cheapest bid. It is the contractor who does the unsafe items first, keeps the documentation your inspector needs, and does not vanish halfway through.
How we approach it: we scope and schedule the unsafe conditions ahead of SWARMP and discretionary work, so whatever is holding the shed up clears as early as the scope allows. We document as we go and hand your QEWI what they need for the amendment instead of making them chase it.
Penalties are why FISP work rarely stays deferred once a report has been filed. The figures usually quoted:
| Situation | Penalty |
|---|---|
| Failure to file a required report | $5,000 per year |
| Late filing | $1,000 per month past the deadline |
| Failure to correct an unsafe condition | $1,000 per month, plus a further charge tied to the length of the affected facade or per balcony |
| A SWARMP condition from the previous cycle filed as unsafe | $2,000 |
| Unsafe-condition ECB violation | $5,000 base, higher at the Board’s discretion |
The DOB and the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings set these, and they change from time to time. Treat the table as orientation rather than advice. Confirm current amounts with the DOB or your QEWI before you make a decision based on them.
If your building is six stories or fewer, FISP does not apply to you. Since Local Law 126 of 2021, though, that no longer means you have no exterior obligation at all.
Since 1 January 2024, any building with a parapet fronting the public right-of-way has to have that parapet observed every year, whatever its height. Detached one- and two-family homes are excluded, along with buildings where a fence or barrier keeps people away from the exterior wall.
This one does not require a QEWI. The rule allows anyone competent to inspect parapets, and it names masons and bricklayers explicitly, alongside architects, engineers, superintendents and others in the construction trades. The observation has to cover the whole parapet up close, and you have to keep the record.
In practice that pulls in a lot of the city’s walk-up and mid-rise stock that never had an exterior compliance obligation before. If your annual observation turns up displaced coping, open joints, cracking or a parapet out of plumb, that is masonry work. Same work we do on FISP buildings, smaller scale.
Local Law 126 also brought in periodic inspections for parking structures, on their own cycle and borough schedule. Concrete repair on garage decks and slab edges sits right next to facade work and often lands in the same capital plan.
We work from your QEWI’s filed report: conditions, locations, photographs, deadlines. No guessing at a scope.
We confirm quantities and conditions in the field, and flag anything the report and the wall disagree on before it turns into a change order.
Line-item scope with quantities, methods and exclusions, split into unsafe items and SWARMP items so a board can see what is urgent and what is merely scheduled.
Work permits, filings coordinated with your design professional, and whatever access the scope needs: scaffold, swing stage or shed.
Whatever is holding the shed up gets scheduled ahead of everything else, with progress documented as we go.
Final walkthrough, photo documentation packaged up for your QEWI’s amended filing, permits closed out, and the shed gone as soon as we are authorized to take it down.
A clear split. Your QEWI inspects and files, we execute and document. If what you need is an inspector, we will say so.
Twenty years of exterior restoration on apartment buildings, commercial property and institutions across the five boroughs.
Public school and institutional work, where scheduling around occupancy and compliance is strictest.
Unsafe conditions come first, because months of shed rental cost more than the repair that clears them.
Line-item scopes, so a board can see why one number is half the other.
Access, protection and phasing planned so residents and ground-floor retail keep operating throughout.
FISP applies to any building over six stories, whatever it is used for. If yours is six stories or fewer you are outside FISP, but the Local Law 126 annual parapet observation still applies as of 1 January 2024, to any building with a parapet fronting the public right-of-way. Detached one- and two-family homes are the exception.
Cycle 10 runs from 21 February 2025 to 21 February 2030, split into three sub-cycles by the last digit of your tax block number. Blocks ending 4, 5, 6 or 9 file between 21 February 2025 and 21 February 2027. Blocks ending 0, 7 or 8 file between 21 February 2026 and 21 February 2028. Blocks ending 1, 2 or 3 file between 21 February 2027 and 21 February 2029.
No, and no other contractor can either. A FISP report has to be filed by a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector, which means a New York State licensed Professional Engineer or Registered Architect meeting the DOB’s experience criteria. We do the repairs the report calls for. If you have not engaged a QEWI yet, that is step one and we are step two.
More urgent than it sounds. SWARMP means those conditions are not dangerous today but will be if you leave them, and your report names a date, at minimum a year out. Miss it and the same conditions get filed as unsafe next cycle, which brings a shed, a repair clock and a civil penalty. SWARMP is the cheapest point in the cycle to do the work, and you get to do it on your schedule instead of the DOB’s.
The expectation is repair within 90 days of the unsafe filing, with extensions where your QEWI can document real progress. Public protection goes up immediately and stays until the DOB accepts an amended report. In practice the 90 days is rarely the hard part. Getting permits, access and a crew mobilized inside them is, which is why calling early matters.
Repair the unsafe conditions that put it there, have your QEWI re-inspect, and get an amended report accepted by the DOB. There is no shortcut around the repair itself. What you can control is sequencing, meaning the shed-critical items get done first rather than working the elevation in whatever order is convenient, and having the documentation ready when your inspector comes back.
It depends on the conditions in your report, how many elevations are involved and what access is needed. A localized parapet repair and a full-building repointing with lintel replacement are different orders of magnitude. What we can tell you is that the biggest cost driver usually is not the masonry. It is access and duration. Run six months long and you are paying for six more months of shed and scaffold. Send us the report and we will give you a line-item number.
Exterior walls are almost always common elements, so the co-op corporation or condo association pays rather than an individual shareholder or unit owner. That comes out of reserves, an assessment or a capital loan. Terraces, balconies and windows are the usual exceptions and turn on your governing documents. Have your managing agent or counsel confirm it against your offering plan and bylaws.
Some of it, with heat, enclosures and cold-weather admixtures. Mortar needs temperatures consistently above roughly 40°F to cure properly, so winter work costs more and takes more control. What that means for you is scheduling: a report filed in autumn generally means a spring start. Leave your filing to the end of the window and you are likely paying a winter premium or filing late.
Yes, all five, plus Nassau, Westchester and Rockland Counties and central and northern New Jersey. We are based in Staten Island.
The fastest way to get a real number is to send us the report. Email it to jm@nycsuperior.com or call (347) 216-7096. If you have an open violation or a shed on the sidewalk, say so. Those go to the front of the queue.
Call us or send the report over. We do the repairs that clear conditions and bring sheds down.
