Most U.S. municipalities have local laws on their books governing how exterior building façades must be inspected, maintained and repaired. While such legislation is occasionally enacted at the state level, generally these laws are a local matter. And while the specific rules and requirements may differ slightly from city to city, the basics are the same; they're designed to maintain structural integrity and prevent the tragic accidents that can occur when masonry, metal cladding, ice, or unsecured rooftop items dislodge or deteriorate and fall onto busy sidewalks below.

The Back Story

The granddaddy of façade inspection laws, New York’s Local Law 10, was famously passed in 1980 after a Barnard College student was struck and killed by a falling piece of building masonry. It was updated and renamed Local Law 11 approximately a year later. Given the height and density of buildings in the Big Apple, and how much time New Yorkers spend on the sidewalks surrounding those buildings, the prospect of being struck by falling debris is both real and terrifying. Indeed, the city’s facade laws have periodically been expanded and refined (often after a tragic event) to ensure that building exteriors are well maintained, and that regulators have a systematic way to inspect and verify that maintenance.

Facades and exteriors are complex, integrated systems, often composed of more than one type of material. They may be masonry, glass, metal, or a combination of all three, and often contain steel frame components as well. Over time, different materials age and deteriorate at different rates and for different reasons. 

For example, masonry facades, as well as parapets and many decorative architectural components are generally held together with concrete—and while brick or stone expands over its lifetime, the concrete pointing between those surfaces shrinks. These opposing forces inevitably cause material bonds to loosen over time, leading to potential hazards to both the building itself and those passing by it. In colder climates, ice and snow can accumulate in the gaps caused by those loosened materials, the freeze-and-thaw cycle further accelerating the problem and causing additional potentially deadly scenarios.  

New York City

As a nexus for laws pertaining to façade-related hazards, New York City may have the most—and most thorough—regulations in the country.  

“In New York City,” says William McCracken, a partner with Moritt Hock & Hamroff, “the formal name of Local Law 11—the Façade Inspection and Safety Program (FISP)—tells the whole story. Among other things, FISP requires that covered buildings having six stories or more be inspected by a qualified professional every five years. That professional then issues a report evaluating whether the building is safe, unsafe, or in need of repairs. Façade maintenance tends to be the most expensive and all-encompassing capital improvement work that co-ops and condos do, at least before the advent of Local Law 97.” (LL97 was implemented in 2019 and mandates that most buildings over 25,000 square feet meet strict carbon emission limits; noncompliant buildings face steep and increasing annual penalties. -Ed.)

“There isn’t anything unique in these requirements for co-op and condo buildings,” McCracken continues, “but because co-ops and condos tend to plan major expenses around FISP cycles, over time the FISP program has become a surrogate for a [citywide] capital improvement and maintenance program.”  

New Jersey

Across the Hudson in Jersey City, New Jersey, as of 2023 all buildings taller than six stories and buildings of four stories or more with masonry façades must be professionally inspected every five years as part of New Jersey’s Structural Integrity Bill. The inspection must include all exterior walls and appurtenances, and a written report prepared by an architect or engineer must be submitted to the Division of the Construction Code Official within 30 days of the inspection.

According to Anthony Volpi, Managing Principal for capital improvement projects with architecture and engineering firm Falcon Engineering, headquartered in New Jersey with offices in New York City, Miami, Maryland, and Philadelphia, “The purpose of periodic inspections is to establish a baseline, and identify any defects or anything that’s hazardous.”   

During an inspection, Volpi says, “An engineer or an architect may see that the brick is bulging, or we may see some cracks, or maybe evidence of some settlement; we may need to do some probing to see what’s causing that. So there may be some additional inspections that are required. The building owner then has 30 days to submit the report from the date of the inspection.”

Boston

Boston was one of the first big cities to follow New York City’s lead, instituting its own façade ordinance around 1995, says Stephen McDermott, an engineering consultant with Charlestown, Massachusetts-based SOCOTEC AE Consulting.  “High-rise inspections are required to be performed on all buildings over 70 feet tall,” he says, “And that applies to any type of building—not just residential buildings. There aren’t any differing requirements for shared-interest community buildings such as condominiums or HOAs, and the focus of the effort hasn’t changed since its inception. It’s a review of tall structures in relation to potential falling hazards. The only criteria is that the height of the building is over 70 feet.”

According to McDermott, “The façade inspection law requires a registered structural engineer or architect with relevant experience in high-rises [to conduct the inspection]. The engineer or architect identifies how they will perform the inspection, which, depending on the professional, could be by lift, swing, camera, drones, etc. They get a feel for the condition of the building, and complete an overall review of the structure. Life safety is primarily what it’s about—are there any life threatening items?—but they’re also looking at the watertightness of the structure” to head off problems caused by moisture infiltration.  

Chicago

In addition to ice and snow-related hazards, Chicago has also experienced incidents where building materials have fallen and posed major safety hazards to people and property on the ground. In 1974, a woman was killed by loose bricks that fell from a 16-story building in the city. Two years later, Chicago actually enacted the country’s first facade ordinance—but it was repealed. The city went 20 years before its periodic inspection ordinance was enacted under its Exterior Wall Program.

Kris Kasten, a partner with Bartzen Rosenlund Kasten, a law firm based in Chicago, explains: “Chicago’s Façade Ordinance became law in 1996. Under this ordinance, Chicago established its exterior wall program. Pursuant to the ordinance and program, buildings over 80 feet in height are required to have routine inspections of the façade every two years.” 

“Under the ordinance, a building is classified into one of four categories based on use, type and age,” he continues. “An additional critical examination of the façade must be conducted every four, eight, or 12 years, depending on which category the building falls into. The city also has an ordinance requiring examination of exposed metal every five years, and there are specific deadlines for filing these reports with the city.”

In Chicago, it’s usually city inspectors who conduct physical examinations of buildings, carrying out routine inspections by sight, aided with binoculars. However, for some types of inspections—mainly the more in-depth critical examinations—the engineer must physically inspect a sample of the building façade. That generally requires scaffolding to enable inspectors to physically touch all or most stories of a building.

Compliance

Requirements and regulations are one thing; the rules are right there, spelled out in black and white. Compliance with those rules may be another matter entirely.

“The most important thing for co-op and condo boards to do is to listen to their professionals,” says McCracken. “Most board members are not building management professionals, much less FISP specialists, so they usually have no independent way of knowing what is required in order to maintain a building envelope or comply with façade maintenance rules. Board members aren’t required to be experts, but they are required to listen to experts.” 

The pros agree that obtaining expert advice and following through on the recommendations of those experts is the key to complying with both the letter of these important safety regulations, and the spirit of them, which is intended to prevent potentially deadly accidents. 

According to Kasten, “Condominium, co-op, and HOA boards have a duty to maintain, repair, and replace their common elements and common areas under both the community’s governing documents and applicable statutory provisions. Therefore, boards should be periodically looking at the condition of their building and determining whether any work is necessary to maintain it. Boards should engage knowledgeable contractors and professionals to assess the condition of their building and provide reports. The board should then use that information to carry out its duties.”

Our experts also note that there is no difference in requirements for condominium, co-op, or HOA properties in any of the markets surveyed. Safety is safety, and keeping façades in one piece is primarily a safety concern, whether a building is residential or commercial, resident- or landlord-owned. That said, it’s important to remember that the boards of shared interest communities have a fiduciary responsibility to their unit owners and shareholders, and compliance with local inspection mandates is only part of that duty; McDermott notes that board members must also act to remedy any hazards uncovered by those inspections, and act quickly.

“The big thing to keep in mind is that once someone finds a hazard, work must be undertaken immediately to correct the problem,” he stresses. “You can’t sit on it out of concern for how much it will cost the building to make the required repairs. The various City departments in charge of compliance don’t care. The ownership entity must do the work to make it safe immediately.”

Howard S. Dakoff, a partner with Chicago-based law firm Levenfeld Pearlstein, cautions boards not to defer maintenance and repair projects for too long—especially when it comes to their façades. “A board has a fiduciary duty to implement best practices to extend the useful life of its major building components, [including] its exterior. I’ve written about decisions boards make during tough financial times that can be problematic; sometimes they’ll defer a major capital project, like masonry, or their roof. If they defer a year, they may not pay anything during that year, but the costs of labor tend to increase annually—same for materials. So there’s already an incremental cost to deferring. And when that scale tips too far, it can actually cause an entirely different type of damage. And deferring necessary maintenance may absolutely become a breach of fiduciary duty.”

In the final analysis local laws enacted to monitor façade conditions are there to keep people safe. That applies to both the public walking by the property and the properties residents. As concerns shared interest communities like condominiums, co-ops, and HOAs, vigilance is doubly important. The potential lawsuit that could result from an accident due to falling masonry left untended and deteriorating from weather and age can easily break the financial back of the association or corporation. Many financial lives are subject to ruin simultaneously, and that’s to say nothing of the potential death or physical injury to the unfortunate victim of the accident.  It is imperative for boards to stay on top of the requirements laid out by local laws and ordinances governing façade maintenance and inspections and to make necessary repairs quickly and thoroughly. That potentially saves lives and provides financial protection to the community.

Inspect early and regularly. Keep yourself and your community safe.

A.J. Sidransky is a staff writer/reporter for CooperatorNews, and a published novelist. He may be reached at alan@yrinc.com.