DOB
May 13, 2008
Windsor Terrace Crew Flouting SWO?
Some weird—and possibly illegal and highly dangerous—stuff is going down at a construction site in Windsor Terrace. According to a message sent out to the Windsor Terrace Alliance email list, illegal demolition activity was occurring yesterday at 1216 Prospect Avenue, the old Elks Club building on Vanderbilt Street. Last week, according to the message, demolition "was shut down on 5/9/08 for illegal mechanical demolition with a Stop Work Order and 2 ECB violations issued by DOB. The property, legally, should have been demolished by hand, only allowing mechanical work once they reached the first floor. As of [yesterday], there has been a partial lift of the SWO to allow for remediation for safety concerns ONLY. Unfortunately the demolition company, Greco, has continued with illegal demolition. 311 has been called, DOB has been alerted. Seems the contractors have also been aggressive with a few of the neighbors, which is just down right wrong." Last night the DOB shut down the site again and ordered an evacuation of two adjacent buildings due to unsafe conditions. This morning, workers were on hand, but it wasn't clear what they were doing. One of the construction workers told us they were "demolishing the building." A DOB enforcement employee was present and said he had no comment about whether the crews had engaged in demolition despite the SWO or what exactly they were being allowed to proceed with now. UPDATE: Here's the skinny from DOB. A Stop Work Order was indeed issued on Monday for illegal mechanical demolition. During the Monday inspection, DOB identified the hazardous conditions posed to the adjacent building by the partially-demolished wall. As a result, Buildings issued a vacate order for the adjacent building. The work being done today was in fact remedial work that the contractor was required to do so that residents could return next door. Tomorrow, the contractor must perform some remedial flashing to bring the site up to snuff in the safety department. GMAP
May 12, 2008
Pity the Poor Builder
Construction industry reps say the city's new safety regs are totally harshing their mellow, according to articles in Crain's and the Daily News. Consider: There were 1,403 stop-work orders on construction sites in April, compared to 785 in January. Unions, construction workers and developers won't go on the record about the situation because they're worried the DOB would exact retribution, but off the record, builders say that the SWOs are costing them a lot of money and that jobs are getting shut down for very minor infractions. Louis Coletti, president and chief executive of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, claims that the increase in SWOs is happening because “[DOB] inspectors are all afraid of losing their jobs.” Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri says that the increase in SWOs has happened because the DOB is inspecting more construction sites nowadays.
Stop-work Orders Soar in Crackdown [Crain's]
Builders Rip Crackdown [Daily News]
Photo by Steve Hopson.
May 7, 2008
Should the DOB be Abolished? Builders Think So
At a City Council hearing yesterday on improving safety at construction sites, reps from the real estate industry and construction unions called for the Department of Buildings to be shut down, according to an article in the Times. Builders want the DOB to be replaced by a public corporation charged with overseeing construction. “The Buildings Department is collapsing under the weight of its own reform,” said Louis J. Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association. Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said the corporation would “do more to protect the safety of the public, as well as construction workers, than most of the 12 bills submitted at the Council.” Those bills, which were also discussed yesterday, include a proposal to have the DOB appoint independent safety inspectors at the expense of developers for sites with a history of violations. Robert LiMandri, the acting DOB commissioner, endorsed the independent inspector idea but is against a bill proposed by Councilmember Letitia James that would involve setting up a “whistleblower’s hot line.”
Many Propose Ways to Make Construction Sites Safer [NY Times]
Photo by Boon Wuldenhoos
April 24, 2008
Slope Ruin Gets Served
An tipster sent word about "that crazy building in Park Slope on the corner of 7th ave & 2nd street." Apparently the DOB affixed a notice to the building about a hearing that was supposed to take place on Monday regarding the structure's latest violation, which involves having an out-of-date permit for scaffolding. The DOB also recorded a violation on the property last year due to its owner's "failure to maintain bldg." City records do not show that the owner, Dorothy Nash, did anything to remedy the infraction, which carried a $2,500 fine (amount paid: $250). The building is legendary in Park Slope because it's been in decline for almost two decades. The Times published a piece about the property a couple months ago saying that it "radiates a mysterious, haunted quality." At the time, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn noted that "187 Seventh Avenue is an ugly mess. Nash has been offered gobs of money to sell the place but has continuously refused. She also owns a building on Second Street between Seventh and Sixth Avenue, an eyesore in similar disrepair." According to an article in the Brooklyn Paper about the property, Nash used to run a bar called Landmark out of its ground floor with odd hours and kids' toys strown about that one person said “was as if the Addams family or Queequeg from ‘Moby Dick’ opened a bar." The DOB complaints on 187 7th Avenue (there have been 21 between the beginning of '07 and now) are a fun read: The most recent involves someone calling the agency to report the building's broken windows, but the majority are records of people telling the city that the scaffolding looks ready to fall at any time, a particularly dangerous situation since the dilapidated pile is across the street form P.S. 321 and, as a few complaints noted, children often play near or under it. GMAP P*Shark DOB
April 22, 2008
Lancaster's Tenure at the DOB is History
Patricia Lancaster, the recently embattled Commissioner of the Department of Buildings, has resigned, according to City Room. Mayor Bloomberg announced the resignation and Lancaster released the following statement:
Today I submitted my resignation, which Mayor Bloomberg accepted. It has been an honor serving in his administration and I thank the Mayor for this opportunity. After six years in public service, I made this decision because I felt it was time to return to the private sector. I am proud of the groundbreaking work the department has done during my tenure to root out corruption, increase transparency, overhaul the building code and increase safety for workers and the public alike. My message today to the talented and capable staff at the Department of Buildings is to keep up the hard work: you’ve made so much important progress. It has been my distinct pleasure working with you.
It's unclear at this time who Lancaster's replacement will be.
Bloomberg’s Buildings Chief Resigns [City Room]
Are the DOB Commish's Days Numbered?
Outrage over Department of Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster's management of her agency is growing amidst revelations that the DOB approved plans for a glass tower on East 51st Street that flouted zoning regulations. Seven people died at the tower's construction site last month after a crane collapsed. According to an article in the Times, even Mayor Bloomberg is having a hard time defending the DOB nowadays. “I don’t think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings’ performance,” the mayor said yesterday. “Whether somebody could have done a better job — I’m trying to — whether they could have done a better job I just don’t know.” Indeed, it is a hard thing to "know," since the mayor's administration has been so staunchly pro-development that the DOB has clearly had a problem enforcing safety standards for all the building's it's approved. “You have a Buildings Department that seems more interested in preserving the rights of developers at the expense of citizens and the community,” said Bruce Silberblatt, a retired contractor. Thirteen people have died in construction-related accidents so far this year, one more fatality than in all of 2007. "If there's more construction, it makes common sense that you probably have more accidents or mistakes made," the mayor is quoted as saying in the Post. "But that's not an excuse. I'm looking at the Buildings Department the same ways I'm looking at every single other agency in this city." Lancaster says she's done a lot to reform the DOB since taking it over in 2002 and notes that she serves "at the pleasure of Mayor Bloomberg...I know we have much more to do to, and as long as I have the mayor's support, I will forge ahead and continue to strengthen the Buildings Department's oversight and regulation of the construction industry."
As Construction Deaths Rise, Buildings Chief Faces Scrutiny [NY Times]
Mayor Dissatisfied With Buildings Department [NY Sun]
Mike Rips Construx Agency [NY Post]
Photo from the Observer.
April 14, 2008
Welcome to the Wild, Wild West
The Daily News had an article yesterday about how many Brooklynites are terrified of safety conditions (or lack thereof) at construction sites. Some choice takeaways:
-Last month the DOB inspected conditions at 305 construction sites in Brooklyn, finding violations at 87 of them and putting stop work orders on 43 of them.
-Last year Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster told the Daily News that she crosses the street to avoid walking under scaffolding.
-Many of the sites shut down in last month's sweep were in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
The quote of the article belongs to Assemblyman Jim Brennan, who's been pushing for DOB reform for a long time now: "It's a reactive response. Of course it's good for them to do a sweep like this, but the current process of supervision and enforcement is broken."
Yup.
Residents Nervous Over Building Sites [NY Daily News]
Brennan on the Frontlines of DOB Reform Fight [Brownstoner]
Photo by Daniel A. Norman.
April 3, 2008
Brennan on the Frontlines of DOB Reform Fight
It's no secret that the DOB's oversight of construction sites during the building boom has left a lot to be desired, a state of affairs that directly or indirectly contributed to the recent deadly scene in Midtown. It's also no secret that lawmakers have pressed the Bloomberg administration to reform the overstretched department—and Brooklyn Assemblyman Jim Brennan, in particular, has been demanding change for a long time now. This week the Voice takes a look at how Brennan introduced a bill last year requiring the DOB to reinspect hazardous violations within 60 days, a bill that Mayor Bloomberg convinced Governor Spitzer to veto. Of course, the problems at construction sites in a development-happy city run deeper than simply ensuring better DOB oversight, as the article notes:
Essentially, current buildings-department regulations create a race between aggrieved citizens and corner-cutting developers: Neighbors have to muster all their energy to stop illegal work, while builders try to outrun them, getting foundations in the ground and walls up before anyone throws a red flag. Then the developers' lawyers go to work, arguing that so much money has already been expended that civic decency should allow them to continue. In one of the few local victories, residents of a block on 15th Street in south Park Slope challenged developers who had won approval for an 11-story condo tower—even though its plans violated city rules. Neighbors hired their own top-notch lawyer to beat the scoundrels at their own game. The cost: $150,000 in legal fees. "You can get massive involvement from politicians and residents and stop rogue projects," said Brennan. "But there is no independent legal process that triggers compulsory better performance from builders."
Brennan has reintroduced his bill, which, following the eastside crane accident, stands a better chance of becoming law.
City Hall Ignored the Hazards of the Building Boom [Village Voice]
threecee.
March 20, 2008
BREAKING: Partial Building Collapse at 170 Smith Street
We've just gotten word that there has been a partial building collapse at 170 Smith Street. A reader forwarded us an alert from the MTA, since subway service underneath the building has been impacted by the accident. There are currently NYCTA emergency workers and at least one person from OEM on the scene. There has been no confirmation whether anyone has been injured or killed in the building. Hope to have more shortly.
Update: This just in from DOB:
Initial reports from the scene indicate the building at 170 Smith Street is in poor condition, but it has not collapsed. The building’s façade has suffered from neglect. On Tuesday, the Buildings Department issued an emergency declaration to allow the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to install a sidewalk shed. The sidewalk shed is in place, and served to catch pieces of the façade that reportedly fell from the building today. On Tuesday after the emergency declaration was issued, Buildings ordered the owner to allow the Department access to the building to make sure it’s structurally sound. The owner failed to do so, and Buildings called the Fire Department gain access to the building. Buildings inspectors and engineers remain on scene, and operations continue.
March 19, 2008
Will the DOB be Able to Man Up?
In a Times piece this morning Jim Dwyer takes a look at all the recent construction tragedies and concludes that "the city’s construction business, particularly outside of Manhattan, is becoming the modern version of the 19th-century coal mine." Most construction-related fatalities in recent years have been in the outer boroughs, and Dwyer notes that at many smaller, non-Manhattan development sites oversight only comes from the sorely overstretched DOB. Although Bloomberg and DOB chief Patricia Lancaster have tried to clean up the agency, hard questions remain about how the city is going to regulate its projected $45 billion in construction growth over the next decade. "It could be they are completely outgunned," Dwyer writes. "This era may serve as a prologue."
Building Roulette: The New Victorian Coal Mine [NY Times]
Photo by mkaggen.