If your building is being renovated around you, there is a document that is supposed to exist before the first permit issues, and it is written specifically about you. It is called a Tenant Protection Plan, and an owner cannot get a permit for work in an occupied building without one.
What the plan has to say
Administrative Code section 28-104.8.4 requires the plan to state that the building contains dwelling units that will be occupied during construction, identify which units those are, and set out the means and methods that will keep the occupants safe. It must contain detailed and specific provisions for:
- Egress — how you get out, throughout the job.
- Fire safety — including temporary fire-rated assemblies and protection of openings.
- Health requirements — dust containment among them.
- Structural safety.
- Compliance with housing standards — the ordinary maintenance-code duties do not pause because there is scaffolding up.
- Noise restrictions.
The statutory word is specific. A plan that says "the contractor will take care" is not a plan, and the Department of Buildings has a standard form, the TPP1, precisely so that each element gets answered.
You are supposed to be told
Local Law 106 of 2019, effective 8 March 2020, tightened this considerably. Two changes matter to a tenant.
The plan moved from being required before approval to being required before the permit — meaning work cannot lawfully begin without one on file.
And from 22 June 2020, when DOB issues the work permit the owner must distribute a Notice to Occupants to every occupied unit and post it conspicuously: in the lobby, and on each floor within ten feet of the elevator, or within ten feet of the main stairwell in a building that has no elevator. If work is going on in your building and nothing has been posted anywhere, that is itself a failure worth reporting.
Section 28-120.1.1 makes the tenant protection plan publicly available, so this is not a document you have to talk anyone into showing you.
What does not change because of construction
This is the part owners most often get wrong in conversation with tenants. A renovation does not suspend the Housing Maintenance Code. Heat and hot water remain due on the ordinary schedule, and their loss is a class C immediately hazardous violation whether or not there is a job running — see no heat or hot water. The warranty of habitability does not have a construction exception. Blocked egress is not a temporary inconvenience; it is the first item the plan is required to address.
Checking the paperwork yourself
Every job filing and every permit issued against your building is a public record. What to look for:
- Is there a permit at all? Work without one is the clearest problem, and the likeliest to draw a stop work order.
- What kind of job is it? An A2 alteration is a different scale of disruption from an A3. How to read a building permit explains the codes.
- Does the filing acknowledge the building is occupied? That is what triggers the plan.
Both DOB systems are worth checking, because older filings live in the legacy one — DOB NOW versus BIS. Any building's permits and violations are on its page on this site.
If it is going wrong
Call 311 and report a construction condition; it routes to DOB. Say the building is occupied and that you believe the Tenant Protection Plan is not being followed — that phrase points the inspector at the right obligation. An inspection produces a dated public record either way, which is the thing you will want later if this becomes a dispute about what was happening and when.
Serious cases draw a stop work order, which halts the job. Illegal or unpermitted alteration is a separate matter again, covered in illegal apartments and conversions.
General information about public records and about the law as written, not legal advice, and not tenant screening. Statutory citations: NYC Administrative Code sections 28-104.8.4 (tenant protection plan) and 28-120.1.1 (public availability); Local Law 106 of 2019, effective 8 March 2020, with the notice distribution and posting requirement effective 22 June 2020. Checked 8 August 2026 — confirm current requirements with the Department of Buildings before relying on them.