The Queens branch office of the city Department of Buildings can be a chaotic place. Bewildered homeowners shuffle about, expediters with official identification tags hanging from their necks navigate the bureaucracy like pros, and jaded clerks shepherd visitors through the process of obtaining permits and erasing violations.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but a new program dedicated to improving customer service is starting to make a difference.
“It used to be a lot worse,” said Craig Papa, an expediter at Design 2147 in Brooklyn who is hired to assist architects and owners in navigating permits through the approval process, and who works at the Queens office. “Almost always, people coming in there have a problem, so there is a certain level of exasperation on both sides.”
To end the frustration, the Department of Buildings has adopted a new, friendlier approach. “Streamlining procedures is very high on our list of priorities,” said Lisa Lewis, director of customer service at the Department of Buildings. “We’re trying to make our processes more transparent so we can get applicants in and out faster. Our goal is to make a visit to the offices unnecessary.”
In Queens, the department has instituted a pilot program designed to ease the acquisition of permits. The system, devised by the Swedish customer service management company Q-Matic, will be rolled out in Staten Island in January. The program is scheduled to be unveiled in Manhattan by February and in the other boroughs when upgrades to the offices are completed, said Lewis.
In 2003, the Queens building department moved its offices into newly-renovated digs at Borough Hall and instituted Q-Next and Q-Welcome, software applications developed by Q-Matic. Q-Next allows tellers to summon customers from their desktop computers, and Q-Welcome gathers a visitor’s information onto one ticket, which is then transferred from station to station during the permitting process. With a more seamless tracking system, delays should drop, Lewis said.
“Before Q-Matic, applicants had to key in all of their information at every window they visited,” she said. “Now, there’s no repetition.”
Partly helped by the adoption of Q-Matic, the number of new building permits grew more than 15 percent in Queens during fiscal year 2005, a greater percentage than for any other borough. The time it took to acquire one dropped by 13 minutes, a one-third reduction in wait times compared to the 2001 figure, according to the Mayor’s Management Report, an annual evaluation of city departments.
With Q-Matic, customers can avoid standing in line behind others who will take up a lot of time and there’s no more need to save places on line, said Papa.
“Compared to what is was before, it’s very helpful,” said Anna Maria Cucich, who often expedites for her husband, architect Anthony Cucich. “You get a ticket and follow the board. Instead of standing on line doing nothing, you know how many people are in front of you and you can go do other things. In the past, if you moved, you lost your spot.”
The department has instituted other citywide changes designed to smooth the process, including Web-based filing and renewals, where applicants can register for permits and receive routine renewals through the department’s Web site.
“Repeat customers with a number of projects don’t even have to set foot in the office in order to carry out routine business,” said Jennifer Givner, a department spokeswoman.
For now, the program applies only to permits that remain unchanged. It also lets contractors who require inspections to make and check on appointments, a vast improvement over the old system, which relied on phone calls and visits that occurred during a window of time that was often inconvenient for both parties, said Givner.
The department also holds open houses for homeowners and members of civic organizations to help them navigate the labyrinth.
Plans are in the works to train clerks to serve customers with different needs. “When clerks specialize in different functions, the line can grow 10 deep,” said Givner. “Now, if one clerk is bombarded, others can step in to help and keep the line moving.”
Department brass also plan to deploy service managers, who would roam the floor and guide visitors through the process.
Despite the improvements, the Department of Buildings office in Queens can still daunt the uninitiated, especially those with limited proficiency in English.
“For people who are not knowledgeable in the system, it can be challenging,” said Phillip Esser, principle at Associated Cultural Resource Consultants, who visited the office to pull folders and view microfilm regarding several properties in the Broadway-Flushing neighborhood.
The records in Westchester County, for example, are “far better organized and staff was milling about to assist you,” he said, noting that the Westchester collection is smaller.
He would have welcomed such help in Queens, where he spent the better part of an afternoon in the records room.
“The title searchers know the ropes, but almost everything was in the back rooms and I had to access everything by going to the desks. It would have been helpful if there were people around to point me in the right direction.”