What's New in Computerized Violation-Tracking and Alert Services?

The latest innovation in violation-tracking is access to fire department data. "The FDNY doesn't have a digital database for the public the way the ECB does," says Paul Gans, director of operations at New Bedford Management. But they're starting to open up the doors and give access to these violation-tracking companies. Empower New York (no relation to the New York State energy-saving program EmPower New York) collects data directly from the FDNY's internal database. In addition, Empower "has state agencies and even some federal agencies now."

And with this explosion of data, most of the companies are savvy enough to realize, as SiteCompli co-founder Ross Goldenberg puts it: "You can have data paralysis by having too much data. It has to be the right data at the right time."

"Replacing the overload of paper with an overload of e-mail is not helpful," says Empower's Jack Wurtzel. "We normalize the data, using data from many sources to create a bigger picture that will help proactively avoid future issues and identify future risks." He refers to "the textonomy of data," using a word from academia that means, essentially, "making it all the same language, so we speak the same thing. One agency calls something one thing and another calls it something else."

Who Pays? 

One thing about CVTA hasn't changed, however: Management companies still are ambivalent about who pays for the service. Some, like FirstService Residential, absorb it as the price of doing business. Others, such as Kaled Management, pass the cost along to boards, though as Peter Lehr, the company's director of management, notes, "It's an optional service. Some [boards] grab it, some say it's a lot of money. I've had some larger buildings say no to it, and I've had some smaller places enthusiastically grasp it." 

What kinds of numbers are we talking about? SiteCompli and Empower charge in the neighborhood of 85 cents to one dollar per apartment per month. Alert Service, a product of the real estate consultancy Jack Jaffa & Associates, charges $10 per building per month. DOB Alerts, a basic service with no bells and whistles, ranges from $9.95 a month for one property to $199 a month for 200 properties. 

"When you're looking at your board and saying, ‘It'd be great if you signed up, it makes your lives and our lives much easier and it protects your property in many ways, but it's $5,000 a year,' a lot of boards look at you and say, ‘This is kind of your job and we want you to pay for it,'" says New Bedford's Gans. "But it benefits everybody involved. Some boards approve it right away and some boards question it. But it's leaving the building exposed if you don't have it, so it's very similar to having insurance."

For more, see our Site Map or join our Archive >>