BUILDING SAFETY SACRIFICED INSPECTIONS, CODE ENFORCEMENT LAG, CITY CONTROLLER SAYS IN NEW AUDIT.

Byline: KERRY CAVANAUGH Staff Writer

With the city in the midst of a development boom, Los Angeles' Building and Safety Department has speeded approval of permits and construction at the expense of safety inspections and code enforcement, City Controller Laura Chick said in a critical report released Monday.

The department also has a backlog of hundreds of thousands of inspection reports and has neglected to punish repeat violators or adequately supervise its building inspectors, Chick said.

``The primary focus today of Building and Safety is to facilitate, not regulate,'' she said at an afternoon news conference. ``The priority is customer service over public safety, and that is just plain wrong.''

Code enforcement chief Dave Keim said he had not yet reviewed the audit, but he took issue with Chick's comments.

``This department feels very strongly that the buildings we live and work in in Los Angeles are safe -- or safer than any in the country. There have been some delays, but we have not sacrificed safety,'' he said.

``It's important that people in the city understand that.''

He said the department has been unable to hire more inspectors to deal with the 20 percent jump in the number of building permits issued.

In response to the audit, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked the Building and Safety Commission to pinpoint issues that pose any risk to the public and recommend solutions to the mayor's deputy chief of staff, who will work to reform the department.

``This is a very serious issue,'' said Joe Ramallo, spokesman for the mayor. ``We need to find a better balance.

``You can't sacrifice safety for speed.''

With the completion of the management audit, Chick plans a second review on how the Department of Building and Safety spends its money.

The department, which has a $77 million budget and more than 1,000 employees, issues permits and inspects new construction and renovations.

Three years ago, the Building and Safety Department was honored by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government for improving its service, cutting waiting times and accelerating permit processes.

It has also won accolades from the Building Industry Association for being more efficient in processing paperwork and scheduling inspections.

However, the department has also been criticized by residents who complain that it is slow to respond to complaints and even slower to penalize scofflaws.

``As somebody who has complained often, trying to get a clear explanation coupled with enforcement takes a tremendous amount of time and energy,'' said Ellen Vukovich of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association.

With the housing boom triggering home remodeling and tear-down projects, she and neighbors have battled Building and Safety over illegal grading, building code violations and overflowing trash containers at construction sites.

``It places the homeowner in the constant position of defending rather than being told `We're looking out for your interests equally as the developer's,''' Vukovich said.

In researching the report, auditors found inconsistent performance among code inspectors in levying financial penalties against repeat offenders.

Scofflaws were fined or punished only 3 percent of the time, the report says. And the average penalty for a property owner whose building or wall could fall down was $210.

By the end of 2005, there were more than 13,600 unresolved code violations, the report says. Auditors found that the department could have collected more than $5 million in fees last year had inspectors levied noncompliance fees for unresolved code violations.

Chick's review also found that the department had a tremendous backlog of inspections, including 150,000 building permits that expired at the end of 2005 without the department giving final inspection approval, according to the audit.

``There is absolutely no way for us to know and be sure that those buildings have been constructed according to all of our building and safety codes,'' Chick said.

Also troubling, she said, were comments from inspectors -- one in every five -- who said they sometimes feel pressured not to write warnings and orders to fix code or construction problems.

``That concerns me enormously, to hear that inspectors are under pressure,'' Chick said. ``Whether it's political pressure, whether it's pressure from the developer, whether it's pressure from the inspector's superiors -- all of it is wrong and should stop.''

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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