In High-Rise Buildings
Bill to Notify FDNY Of Shifts in Floors

By ARI PAUL

Carole Chervin, a resident of the Sheffield, a high-rise building on West 57th St., awoke one morning last October to find a notice from the building management on her door stating that her floor, the 20th, would soon be the 27th floor.

GALE A. BREWER: Prime mover on bill.

"It felt like Alice in Wonderland," she said.

Along with the frustration of updating their addresses and the prospect of losing mail, residents feared that if a fire occurred, responding Firefighters would be confused by the change in floors.

'Our Primary Concern'

"The fire hazard was our primary concern right away," Ms. Chervin said.

When residents later asked whether FDNY officials had received an updated floor plan for the Sheffield, they learned that they had not. This prompted them to urge their Council Member, Gale A. Brewer, to take action.

The City Council passed a measure sponsored by Ms. Brewer May 30 that would require high-rise building owners to promptly and electronically notify the department when they change the numbering of the floors. The measure affects owners of buildings higher than 150 feet.

JIM SLEVIN: Bill clears up confusion.

Council Member Brewer was particularly concerned about the change at the Sheffield because it happened right after Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle crashed an airplane into a residential building on the Upper East Side. Firefighters responding to that incident later said they were confused about where the fire was because the floor and unit numbers had been changed.

"I was totally blown away," Ms. Brewer said.

Under the bill, Intro 496-A, building owners have two days to submit new floor numbering lists after they are changed.

"The real estate boom that this city is undergoing has caused some developers to drastically alter the way they number the floors of many high-rise buildings," said Jim Slevin, vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters' Association, in a statement supporting 496-A. "However, now it is common practice for a building to skip as many as 20 or 30 floors so that they can market a building as being taller than it actually is. As one could imagine, this causes great confusion and dangers to Firefighters responding to fires in these buildings."

The Uniformed Fire Officers' Association also supports the measure.

"It's an additional tool for us to help us have a more efficient fire operation," said Edward Boles, one of the union's Lieutenants' representatives.

Fire Department officials support the measure, and Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign it. The Real Estate Board voiced no opposition.

More Help for FDNY

A day prior to the Council's action, Mr. Bloomberg signed Intro 553-A into law. It requires the Buildings Department to inform the Fire Department when it issues any permit for a building to change its use or amend its Certificate of Occupancy. Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Council Member Miguel Martinez and others sponsored that bill in response to a 2006 incident where two Firefighters died when the floor collapsed beneath them at a building fire in The Bronx. The department had not been notified of the renovation in the building.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta also told the Council last week that half of the city's high-rises were not in compliance with laws requiring them to have emergency-response plans to terrorist attacks.