Stop Work Order / DoB Bureaucracy
Kind of a long story, but I’ll do my best to keep it short. Back in April, my business partner and I rented a warehouse in Gowanus with the intention of building partitioned rooms (what we’re using it for isn’t important). We started doing the work ourselves without permits, an admittedly bonehead move on our…
Kind of a long story, but I’ll do my best to keep it short.
Back in April, my business partner and I rented a warehouse in Gowanus with the intention of building partitioned rooms (what we’re using it for isn’t important). We started doing the work ourselves without permits, an admittedly bonehead move on our part. We got slapped with a SWO shortly thereafter.
After a few months of dealing with an expeditor, an architect, and a contractor, we got our plans approved, paid the $5,500 (!) penalty, and got our permits to work. We thought it was a done deal.
Because this cost a ton of money, we figured we’d wait a couple of months to generate more cash before we moved on to our HVAC installation, also an expensive job. We already had plans approved in September, but just found a company we were happy with and signed a contract last week for a 15-ton unit on our roof. We went to expeditor, and he went to DoB to pull permits today. What they told him blew my mind. Apparently, we still have some civil penalty for almost $10,000 that is due, for a SWO that doesn’t exist, or was already paid. What is going on here?!?!
I’d like to know if anyone else is completely fed up with the DoB being easily one of the most corrupt and money-hungry organizations in this town. I certainly am. It seems to me that people are quick to defend them, but I feel like everyone there is either on the dole or would like to be. Is it possible to make it what it’s supposed to be, i.e. an organization that actually CARES about safety and enforcing code, instead of a bureaucratic greed machine? It’s one thing to throw arbitrary fines at giant developers building huge condos on 4th Ave (it may not be right, but they have budgets for that), it’s another to screw over small businesses who are just trying to build some walls and put heat in their buildings.
Any advice, Brownstoners? I’m at a loss. I’m about to throw in the towel and move to Nebraska or something.
Also, why is there not a category on here for the DoB? They are the source of SO MANY problems…
BrooklynBear – I feel your pain. Something should be done! The DOB is corrupt!
Putnamdenizen: Not to make the post about me, but by “kitchen” I meant whole new structure, radiant heat, curved glass, a copper roof etc. . . not just cabinets and painting.
BrooklynBear: That is fantastic news. You’ve inspired me to change some of my lawless ways in the New Year. Thanks.
wow
you trusted your landlord?…lol…it reminds me of a story from when david walentas was dumbo’s slumlord instead of the lionized developer he is today…artists would rent his spaces and see a radiator in the loft, assuming that there was heat provided..winter would come around and it would become literally freezing… walentas would tell the artists ” does it say in your lease that there is a boiler in the building?”
if you have the documentation of the initial fine payment,you can get the mistake taken care of after a few kafkaesque hours of waiting in endless lines at the dob, whether by you (if you have the tolerance) or your your expediter…but believe me it is way more user friendly than it was 20 years ago when i came to nyc and there were rows of briefcases at the nyc dob at 7am holding the expediters places in line..hope that you are soundproofing all your walls and floors appropriately and isolating the hvac systems between rooms
good luck
Music rehearsal studios. And, thanks. Sorry for calling you snotty.
Fair enough, but again, that’s why I immediately copped to it not being the smartest thing I’d ever done. And honestly, I’m only a realtor in the sense that I’ve rented a few apartments. I’m licensed, but getting a real estate salesperson’s license in this state requires no knowledge of what requires permits and what doesn’t. We figured we could do all of the work ourselves, and asked a lot of professionals who would know whether or not they thought permits were necessary. They all said they thought we could get away with it without them (including our landlord). So, yes, we knew the risks going in, and we totally got busted, but we paid for that and did the work to correct it legitimately, so that all is kind of beside the point.
The point is that now the city is trying to make us pay double for a penalty we’ve already paid, which really chaps my ass because it’s indicative of a system that is so damaged that it can misplace thousands of people’s dollars, people who sometimes don’t have a budget to deal with it. Luckily, we have overhead for this kind of thing, but not much. If we can’t show them that this extra fine is BS and they force us to pay, we’ll be SOL for quite a while.
good luck w/ the project..what is it btw?
Good one.
Next.
honestly, wasn’t being too condescending…but it is always a really bad idea to think that you can get away with doing things on the fly…you describe yourself as a musician/ realtor in brooklyn for 10 years.. its not like you are some starry eyed kid from nebraska.. you should know better