What DOT controls
The Department of Transportation controls the street, the curb, and the sidewalk. The moment your work steps outside the property line, it becomes a DOT matter, and it needs a permit before it can proceed.
That covers more ground than most people expect. Occupying a lane. Closing a roadway. Taking sidewalk for staging or a construction entrance. Cutting into the curb. Installing a vault beneath the sidewalk. Positioning a crane or a concrete pump where its outriggers land in the street. If it touches the public right of way, it is a filing.
DOB approval does not carry the street with it. A project can be fully permitted by Buildings and still be unable to work, because the sidewalk it needs is not permitted by DOT. These are separate filings on separate timelines, and the DOT side is the one people start late.
Permits and approvals we file
Roadway and lane closures
Full or partial closures for deliveries, crane picks, concrete pours, and sustained occupancy. The filing has to show the closure itself, the maintenance and protection of traffic around it, and how pedestrians get past.
Sidewalk occupancy and pedestrian routing
Taking sidewalk for construction means showing where the public walks instead. Protected walkways, temporary paths, crossings, and the clearances each has to hold.
Vault installations
Structures built beneath the sidewalk, whether new vaults, extensions, or work on existing ones. These involve the sidewalk surface above, the structure below, and the utilities running through the same space, and they need drawings that account for all three.
SCARA filings
The Sidewalk, Curb, & Roadway Application is the filing that covers work in the public right of way. Sidewalk replacement, curb cuts, roadway restoration, and the reinstatement conditions that come with them.
Staging and construction access
Where material lands, where trucks stand, where the site gate opens onto the street, and how all of it stays clear of traffic and pedestrians.
What we do
We prepare the drawings, assemble the application, and file it. If the agency comes back with a condition or an objection, we handle that too rather than sending it to you to sort out.
Most DOT problems are timing problems. The permit is not hard to get, it is just not instant, and it gets started too late. Send us the project early and the street is ready when the job needs it.
Where we file
All five boroughs, and across New Jersey. Every borough runs the same code but not the same conditions, and a filing drawn for a Midtown block does not transfer cleanly to a street in Staten Island.