January 2023 Edition
Dear DOB Customers,
As we welcome the new year, I am excited to think about where we are going. However, even as we look to the future, I remember our journey to get to this point. Standing up a brand-new agency takes a great deal of planning, adaptation, and execution. I am grateful for the hard work and sacrifices of our staff both present and past for their dedication to the service of the District.
It is also important that I thank you for holding us to a high standard. Thank you for being patient with us as we continue to finetune processes and figure out the best ways to deliver our services to you with equity and excellence. Your input is always appreciated and encouraged. We have endeavored to engage and involve the community in our work, educating them and listening to concerns to help us work more efficiently.
I encourage you to view our FY23 Agency Performance Plan, which reflects this spirit. It consists of many strategic initiatives, including the development of our Strategic Enforcement Plan, which is just one more instance of our agency seeking out community input to help guide our path forward. Additionally, our new employee Training Academy is an enterprise initiated by our team as a valuable step towards further investment in our staff, providing them a stronger foundation to deliver our public services. We are excited to see the benefits of further strategic investment in our employees.
As we continue in our efforts to move the District forward, we thank you for your trust in us as we pursue our mission and continuously seek to evolve in how we deliver services to you. In 2023, our commitment to you is that we will continue to be focused on fostering innovation to make the District safer.
Stay Safe.
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 Ernest Chrappah
Acting Director
 In December, Department of Buildings (DOB) Acting Director Ernest Chrappah and Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DLCP) Interim Director Shirley Kwan-hui were invited to Georgetown University's Holiday Open House, where they were presented with awards to recognize DOB and DLCP's partnership with Georgetown University on student safety by ensuring students who live in off-campus housing reside in safe, licensed, and inspected rentals.
Hosted by Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia in Riggs Library on Georgetown's historic campus, the event was well-attended. Guests included DC Councilmember Brooke Pinto (Ward 2), Councilmember Matthew Frumin (Ward 3), City Administrator Kevin Donahue, ANC commissioners, Georgetown Community Partnership leaders, neighbors, and other community and university leaders.
Our agency's work to conduct inspections of off-campus student rental properties represents a valuable part of our data-focused partnership with local universities like Georgetown to support the District's overall housing inspection program. For more information, please visit our inspection resources page.
 Members of our Ward-Based Account Management team were excited to attend Mayor Muriel Bowser's 24th Annual Senior Holiday Celebration at the DC Armory. The event, held in coordination with the Department of Aging and Community Living (DACL), was an excellent opportunity to speak with District seniors and celebrate the holiday season. The celebration included speeches, expo-style booths, and musical performances. Photos from the celebration are available here.
DOB knows how important events like these are to invest time and energy in. Whether it is serving as a mentor to others or sharing their love and wisdom with others, seniors are a vital part of the fabric of the District, and our agency is always happy to attend these events.
 DOB is gearing up to welcome our first cohort of architecture and engineering interns later this month to help contribute to our service delivery and gain valuable education through experience in several of our program areas, including plan review, inspections, program analysis, and green energy.
Partnerships are being explored and solidified with local institutions such as Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia to select students. Once selected and onboarded, interns will receive a diverse experience in a rotation-based curriculum that will introduce them to service areas across the agency. Our hope is that participants will be well-positioned to potentially join the agency full-time following successful completion of the program. The long-term success of our agency depends on our future civil servants, and this program will help to cultivate the next generation of public service.
For more information on the program, see DOB Acting Director Ernest Chrappah's recent feature in the Washington Business Journal (please note a paid subscription is required to read articles).
 January 2023 marks the formal launch of DOB's new Training Academy, an initiative spurred by the agency's continuous desire to grow as a progressive and agile agency. In the spirit of preparing and equipping our employees to be the best public servants they can be, our Training Academy has been designed to provide a solid foundation for new employees and a valuable resource for existing staff who would like to gain deeper knowledge of our program areas.
The Training Academy will have a few different stages. The first week will focus on DOB’s mission, organization, our project-based culture, software and customer engagement, performance dashboard, and will share a comprehensive overview of the agency. The following weeks will split into separate tracks for employees based on their position and role in the agency. For example, our account managers might receive far-ranging surface-level training on different program areas to help them to serve the public, while managers might receive specialized management training designed to ensure that DOB’s teams are managed in an appropriate and streamlined manner.
While the Training Academy’s purpose is primarily to educate and equip DOB staff members, the central reason behind our desire to provide a solid foundation for staff members is our responsibility to make our services accessible and our delivery excellent. The Training Academy is just one of the ways we are seeking to progress the agency forward.
 DOB's mission is to protect the safety of District of Columbia residents, businesses, and visitors, and to advance the development of the built environment through permitting, inspections, and code enforcement. Our enforcement efforts are tracked on our Agency Performance Dashboard and published for public view. With this in mind, DOB develops the Strategic Enforcement Plan every three years using current data and best practices, and incorporating community sentiment. The forthcoming plan will be DOB's first.
Last month, DOB was pleased to invite the public to share their thoughts to inform parts of our Strategic Enforcement Plan for FY23 – FY25. A special discussion on December 15th was also held to provide more context on DOB's strategic enforcement initiatives. Our agency knows how vital it is for community members to share their ideas and join us to learn more about our work.
In order to garner direct public input, we set up an online community engagement forum that was open through December 31, 2022. Community voices have been critical in the development of our Strategic Enforcement Plan, and we look forward to continuing to partner with you in making the District a better and safer place to live, work, and play.
Over the last couple of months, we shared an important update about Tertius, DOB's innovative digital marketplace, where property owners now have an easier choice in obtaining construction inspections using DOB inspectors or third-party inspection agencies (TPIAs). While DOB inspectors perform inspections at no additional cost, some customers may prefer to engage third-party inspection agencies at cost. This choice offers flexibility for customers' budgets and timelines.
This past month, we launched some additional new features to help streamline the experience for our third-party agencies who perform inspections. While these updates do not have any direct impact on permitholders/residential customers' user experience, they will directly be of service to our third-party agency customers, and will help improve overall processing speeds.
Streamlined and Standardized Inspection Reports
In the past, agencies would present their own inspection reports upon the completion of customer-booked inspections and DOB would then process them. These reports and the ways in which they were recorded varied widely across agencies. Moving forward, these reports have been standardized to reflect regulatory and process needs so that customers will receive their reports sooner and agencies will be paid faster.
The primary motivation for our continued investment in Tertius is to streamline the steps involved in the inspection process and promote safety in construction. We invite you to check out our website and see how we are moving the District forward.
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Contact DOB via email at dob@dc.gov, through our online inquiry form or during normal business hours using the live chat available on dob.dc.gov or by phone at 202.671.3500, and we will get back to you in three business days or less.
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