Many NYC homeowners ask the same question:
“How can I quickly get a clear NYC building report for my property and neighborhood, see all important information in one place, and understand what it means for me?”
NYC official lookup tools (core set)
- BIS* / BISWeb (Building Information System) – Legacy DOB database with a profile page for every NYC property, showing jobs/filings, permits, complaints, violations, inspections, and occupancy info.
- DOB NOW Public Portal – Newer online system where you can view filings and permit activity that were submitted through DOB NOW; it will eventually fully replace BIS, but for now data is split between the two.
- Find Building Data (NYC DOB landing page) – The DOB “hub” page that explains how to use BIS and DOB NOW to review the history of any building in NYC.
What we are testing.
Today we are testing a new type of service (“smart reports”) that wraps the above raw sources into a homeowner‑friendly summary and connects trusted NYC public data with modern AI tools. Commercially this setup is called an MCP server (Model Context Protocol) and is provided by an independent civic‑tech project called Common Ground NYC.
You can learn more about their MCP tools here: Common Ground NYC MCP server documentation
What this new service can do
When it is fully set up, this service will let you (a common homeowner or a tenant) get detailed information about:
- Your building: DOB* and HPD* violations, complaints, permits, and enforcement history.
- Your landlord and portfolio: other buildings, patterns of violations, “worst landlord” style risk signals.
- Your neighborhood: 311 housing complaints, safety and crime trends, health and environmental issues, nearby services.
- Nearby help: legal aid, housing counseling, social services, and other support around your address.
All of this comes from official NYC public data (NYC Open Data and similar sources), collected and combined by Common Ground NYC, and then delivered through their MCP server.
How it can help a 1–4 family homeowner
This service is designed for real‑life questions, for example:
- What violations and complaints exist for my house, and are they serious?
- Is this 2‑family home I want to buy known for many problems?
- What kind of safety, health, and environmental issues are common in my block or ZIP code?
Iqarius.com will explore this new service to see if its approach can be used as a starting point for a typical NYC homeowner. We will look at how it uses public data and AI to explain legal terms in plain language and focus on usefulness: what the numbers mean for you in terms of risk, cost, and next steps, especially for small property owners and families with limited English.
Important: this is NOT an official NYC system
It is very important to understand what this service is and what it is not:
- It is a third‑party civic‑tech project, not a NYC government website.
- It uses official NYC public data, but it also adds its own analysis, rankings, and scores.
- It is informational only. It does not issue violations, cancel fines, or replace official DOB, HPD, or court records.
For any legal or financial decision (for example: buying a house, fighting a violation, going to court), you should always:
- Check the information directly on official websites (DOB, HPD, OATH/ECB, Finance, NYC Open Data).
- Talk to a qualified professional (architect, engineer, attorney, or housing counselor) when needed.
Iqarius.com will always clearly label this service as “unofficial – based on public data” and will show links to original agency sources so you can double‑check important details.
What comes next on iqarius.com
In the coming weeks, we plan to:
- Test address‑based reports: you type a NYC address and get a clear summary of key building and neighborhood issues.
- Publish case studies showing real‑world examples (with anonymized details) and step‑by‑step explanations of what owners did and what they should have done.
- Explore safe ways for AI helpers to combine iqarius.com articles with this rich NYC data, so they can answer your questions in simple English.
For technically inclined readers, here is a developer article explaining how NYC Open Data can be structured for AI agents using an MCP server (similar to the Common Ground NYC setup we are testing). read
Our goal is simple:
To make NYC’s complex building and neighborhood data understandable and useful for everyday homeowners, small landlords, and tenants.