Department of Buildings fails safety investigation.

On Nov. 17, Assembly member Scott Stringer (D, Manhattan) released a report detailing the total failure of the New York City Department of Buildings to fulfill its mandate to ensure New Yorkers' safety by its failure to enforce critical building code compliance and collect fines on open building code violations.

"My investigation found that the DOB knowingly puts the lives and safety of thousands of New Yorkers at risk by allowing building code violations to remain outstanding and neglecting millions of dollars of potential revenue by failing to collect overdue fines," said Stringer.

Stringer analyzed data for six types of the most egregious hazardous building code violations, or just 2% of the total 379 categories. For those six categories, nearly 13,000 of the violations the DOB issued have still not been corrected and continue to endanger tenants on a daily basis.

"It is an outrage that the City does not require landlords to immediately remedy these extremely hazardous and life-threatening violations. Children, the elderly, men and women all over the City are subject to dangerously substandard conditions in their homes, at school, and at work without ever knowing that their safety is in jeopardy. Despite a requirement that hazardous violations are cured within 24 hours, compliance with the building codes has essentially become optional," said Stringer.

According to the study, $14 million dollars of currently outstanding fines are still uncollected for the six building codes that were examined. Since FY 2001, a whopping $13,965,434 dollars out of $19,903,365 in fines have not yet been collected. In other words, the City is still waiting to collect 70% of those fines. "It is inexplicable and unacceptable that the City would permit any revenue stream to remain untapped in these times of budgetary peril," declared Stringer.

For FY 2001 and 2002 there is an average of 2,000 violations for each of the six codes. Thus, for two years, if there are 12,795 open violations for only six building code categories, there could be up to 800,000 total outstanding violations for all of the 379 building codes.

Said Stringer: "While 13,000 open violations seems like a lot, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Adding the number of uncured violations from previous years to the 56,000 new violations issued on average each year is increasing the numbers to an untenable level. We must act now to reform the DOB."

Stringer's report included the following recommendations to reform the DOD: Ensure the most dangerous violations are cured immediately as required by DOD regulations and City laws; collect all fines owed to the City; hire more inspectors and give adequate support to its inspectors through education and training.