200 responses were received from architects willing to survey affected neighborhoods damaged by the super storm Sandy. “Their job would be to help the city evaluate uninhabited buildings, a kind of architectural triage: green stickers are placed on buildings that can be inhabited immediately, yellow on buildings that can be inhabited after remediation, and red on buildings that cannot be made safe.” Lance Jay Brown, a professor of architecture at the City University of New York (CUNY) refers to it as “second-responder work.”
But. . . there is no good sam law in New York for architects.
“According to Brown and others, architects are prevented from performing damage assessment—as volunteers—by the absence of a law to protect them from future liability. About half the states have “good Samaritan” laws that cover architects, allowing them to do volunteer work in emergencies without fear of lawsuits. But New York is without such protection. “Legislation exists, but it just hasn’t been passed,” says Brown, who has been involved in the fight for a “good sam” law since 2004, as has the state AIA office in Albany. “We lobby for it constantly, but lawyers lobby against it,” Azaroff explains, adding, “As a Brooklyn architect, I should be able to walk across the street and help a neighbor. This is something that would promote a better society.”
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