Local Law 11 of 1998 (FISP) Explained: NYC's Facade Inspection Law for Buildings Over Six Stories

The law behind the shed on your sidewalk

If your building is taller than six stories, New York City requires someone to climb up and look at your facade on a schedule — and to tell the Department of Buildings, in writing, what they found. That requirement is Local Law 11 of 1998, better known today by the name of the compliance program it created: FISP, the Facade Inspection and Safety Program.

Local Law 11 is the law every board, managing agent, and building owner over six stories eventually runs into, usually because a filing deadline is approaching or because an inspection just came back SWARMP or Unsafe. This post covers what the law actually requires, what the three possible findings mean, what filing late or doing nothing costs, and how a 2025 amendment — Local Law 49 — changes the inspection interval going forward without changing anything about your current cycle. For a visual walkthrough, see our briefing slides: Your façade clock and your sidewalk shed.

What the original 1998 law required

Local Law 11 of 1998 added a facade inspection requirement to the NYC Building Code for “all existing buildings or buildings hereafter erected which are greater than six stories in height.” As originally written, it required a critical examination of the exterior walls and appurtenances “at periodic intervals as set forth by rule of the commissioner, but…at least once every five years,” conducted and witnessed by a licensed architect or professional engineer. That five-stories-plus threshold and five-year rhythm is still the backbone of the program today, now codified at NYC Administrative Code Section 28-302.1 and the implementing rule, 1 RCNY Section 103-04. Over several subsequent cycles the program picked up its current name, FISP, and a more detailed rule — but the basic obligation (buildings over six stories, periodic critical examination, written report to DOB) traces straight back to 1998.

Who has to inspect, and what they’re looking for

Per 1 RCNY Section 103-04, the examination must be performed by or under the direct supervision of a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector (QEWI) — a New York State licensed Professional Engineer or Registered Architect who meets DOB’s qualification standard. The QEWI is retained by the building owner, not DOB, and is responsible for:

• Reviewing the most recently filed report before starting the new examination.
• Designing an inspection program specific to that building’s construction type, age, exposure, and repair history.
• Performing close-up physical examinations from a scaffold or other observation platform at intervals of no more than 60 feet along every street-facing elevation (the rule sets out a minimum-examination table by elevation length), plus a full walk-around visual inspection. Drones, high-resolution photography, and other remote methods can supplement but do not replace the close-up requirement.
• Starting with the ninth filing cycle, performing probes on cavity wall construction in every subsequent odd-numbered cycle, unless an exception in the rule applies (a completed tie repair campaign, or a sufficiently new certificate of occupancy).
• Filing a written technical report through DOB NOW: Safety that documents conditions found and assigns the building one overall classification.

Safe, SWARMP, or Unsafe — the one word that decides everything

The QEWI’s report comes down to a single classification, each one defined in 1 RCNY Section 103-04(a):

• Safe — no repair or maintenance is needed to sustain the structural integrity of the exterior, and none is expected to become necessary within the next five years.
• Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program (SWARMP) — the facade is safe right now, but will need repair or maintenance sometime in the next five years (though not less than one year out) to keep it from deteriorating into an unsafe condition.
• Unsafe — a condition hazardous to people or property that requires repair within one year of the inspection’s completion. The owner must immediately install public protection (a sidewalk shed, fence, or netting), and any SWARMP condition left uncorrected from the prior report must now be reported Unsafe.

A SWARMP finding is a deadline with room to plan around it. An Unsafe finding is a deadline that starts the moment the QEWI notifies DOB — public protection goes up first, and the 90-day repair clock and the shed itself follow immediately after.

Filing cycles and sub-cycles: why not every building files the same year

DOB doesn’t ask every building over six stories to file in the same year — that would overwhelm the pool of available QEWIs and contractors. Instead, each five-year report filing cycle (we’re currently in Cycle 10, running through 2030) is split into three sub-cycles determined by the last digit of the building’s tax block number, a structure the rule calls the “staggered inspection cycle.” You can confirm your building’s block number and filing history at no cost through DOB’s Building Information Search (BIS) or the FISP Universe Map, and cross-check your sub-cycle window against our Cycle 10 facade inspection guide. If your report already came back and you’re trying to understand what the classification means for your building specifically, see how to read your FISP report.

What it costs to file — and what it costs to miss the window

Per NYC DOB’s Facade Fees & Penalties page:

Filing fees

• Initial filing: $425.00
• Amended/subsequent filing: $425.00
• Extension of time to complete repairs: $305.00
• Request for waiver of penalties: $140.00

Penalties

• Late filing of the initial report: $1,000 per month
• Failure to file the initial report at all: $5,000 per year
• Failure to correct an Unsafe condition: per the schedule in 1 RCNY Section 103-04
• Failure to correct a SWARMP condition: $2,000

Unsafe conditions must be corrected within 90 days of filing, with an amended report — certifying the repair is complete and no unsafe condition remains — due within two weeks of finishing the work. If repairs and the amended report can’t realistically be completed within that window, the owner needs to request an extension of time before the deadline passes, not after.

After an Unsafe finding: shed, repair, amended report

An Unsafe classification sets off a specific sequence under the rule:

1. Immediate notification. The QEWI must notify DOB and the owner the moment an unsafe condition is discovered, and must recommend the type and location of public protection.
2. Public protection goes up. Typically a sidewalk shed, but a fence or netting can apply depending on the condition and location.
3. Correction within 90 days of the report being filed. The rule’s definition of an Unsafe condition refers to repair within one year of the critical examination, but the operative deadline is 90 days from filing, extendable by DOB on application by the QEWI.
4. Amended report within two weeks of completing the repair, certifying through the QEWI that no unsafe condition remains at the building.

A shed that goes up because of a FISP Unsafe finding is now also governed by a separate set of 2025 local laws — shorter 90-day shed permit terms, an engineer’s progress report at every renewal, and penalties for an idle shed — which we cover in our Local Law 48 sidewalk shed rules guide. Those laws control the shed and the repair-milestone clock; FISP controls the inspection and classification that triggered it in the first place.

What Local Law 49 of 2025 changes — and what it doesn’t, yet

Local Law 49 of 2025, passed by the City Council on March 26, 2025 and signed by the Mayor on April 17, 2025, amends Admin Code Section 28-302.2 in two ways, both effective October 1, 2026:

• The requirement that a critical examination happen “at least once during each five-year report filing cycle” is replaced with examinations occurring “at periodic intervals as set forth by rule of the commissioner…provided such periodic intervals are between 6 to 12 years.”
• A new building’s first examination moves from “the fifth year” to “the eighth year” following the erection or installation of its exterior walls, as measured from its temporary or final certificate of occupancy.

What the law does not do is set that new interval itself. Local Law 49 also required DOB to study the appropriate inspection interval and report recommendations to the City Council Speaker by December 31, 2025; DOB’s consultant, Thornton Tomasetti, delivered that study in a December 2025 FISP Recommendations Report with proposals including a six-year baseline cycle, a six-year first filing for new buildings, and an abbreviated visual-only exam option for qualifying buildings — but those are recommendations, not rules, and DOB has not yet proposed a rule adopting any of them. Under New York City’s rulemaking process, a proposed rule has to be published at rules.cityofnewyork.us for public comment and a hearing before it can take effect.

Practically, that means: if your building is in Cycle 10, your sub-cycle filing deadline has not moved. The five-year cycle structure keeps running until DOB actually promulgates a rule setting a new interval within the 6-to-12-year range Local Law 49 now allows. Boards and owners should plan reserves around the cycle they’re currently in, not around a future 12-year interval that hasn’t been adopted.

What this means for your building, practically

A longer future inspection interval is not a longer repair window for anything already on a SWARMP or Unsafe clock. SWARMP items still carry the repair date your QEWI assigned, and an uncorrected one still becomes Unsafe at the next inspection. An Unsafe finding still means a shed now and a repair deadline that doesn’t move regardless of what DOB eventually decides about future cycle length.

Altius CM works the full range of Local Law 11-driven restoration work — facade repair, parapet and masonry repair, sealant and caulk replacement, roofing and waterproofing scopes tied to a facade program, and the sidewalk shed and suspended-scaffold sequencing an Unsafe finding requires — alongside weekly progress logs and drone facade surveys to document condition and progress through the job. If your FISP report came back SWARMP or Unsafe, or you want a second set of eyes on scope before committing to a repair program, see our scale-of-work breakdown or the full list of services we provide.

This is general information, not legal advice. Always confirm your building’s specific filing status, sub-cycle, and deadlines directly in DOB NOW: Safety, since individual filing history can affect which deadlines apply.

Have a FISP finding that needs a scope and a schedule? Talk to us.