Following the resignation of architect Patricia Lancaster as New York City’s Department of Buildings commissioner, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is mulling whether or not to drop the requirement that the commissioner be a registered architect or engineer, The New York Times reported on April 23. Lancaster stepped down this week in the wake of several recent construction accidents, including a deadly crane collapse in March at a high-rise whose construction Lancaster later admitted should never have been approved. Until this string of disasters, which has left 13 people dead this year (already more than all of 2007), Lancaster had been viewed as a reformer who succeeded in curbing corruption and in overhauling New York’s building code for the first time in three decades—all during the midst of an unprecedented construction boom since 2001. But critics argue that Lancaster had failed to emphasize safety and that her explanations for the department’s missteps were unclear. Her supporters counter that she achieved “almost unimaginable” results given that the Bloomberg administration operated the Buildings Department “on a shoestring,” as Ric Bell, executive director of the American Institute of Architects in New York, told the Times. Following Lancaster’s resignation, the paper reported on April 24, “the Bloomberg administration announced a $4 million plan... to hire specialized engineers to inspect ‘high risk’ construction sites citywide and develop new procedures to make the work safer.”

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