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I don’t know if anyone else has this problem…but in north brooklyn there is a lot of development, afterhours construction without permits, balcony extensions, buildings modified after the BSA approved drawings with out DOP permits. The community board is helpful to a certain degree but they can’t get the DOB to enforcing the building codes, issuing stop work orders, issuing citations. – prevent the illegal work from taking place. There is a cavalier attitude about developments taking place in the hasidic areas of brooklyn. This system is bust–the idea is if you can’t get what you want during the BSA planning stage…you can make you modifications that were rejected (illegally and afterhours)…balcony extensions once you have your C of O, because the DOB can’t and won’t enforce it. All they will do is collect penalties if give any. This is a win win situation for the city and the devleopers. The developers get their balcony extensions…and they are easily work a few thousand (which the city can collect in penalities…which they rarely do). Anyone know of any advocacy groups that work with citizens about DOB not enforcing building codes. It seems that when and if a problem is taken seriously…the common outcome is that developer gets to keep their modified buildings…balcony extensions, etc, and the DOB collects the penaltie and revenues. Nothing is determined with how this modifications have altered the streetscape of the community and substantially diminished the neighborhood. .Nothing is given back to the community that has had to deal with the afterhours illegal construction.

This system doesn’t work. If the contractors were also accessed penalities if they are caught doing work without permits and afterhours…perhaps we would have some type of slow down in this illegal construction?