By Bob Harris
The topic which has consistently attracted more civic leaders to the many meetings and civic luncheons I have attended over the years has been the enforcement — or lack of it — of the building codes by the Buildings Department.
The recent general meeting of the Queens Civic Congress was no exception. Several hundred civic association leaders, plus candidates for office who wanted to be seen and heard, crowded into the large meeting room of the Kew Gardens Community Center at Queens Boulevard and Union Turnpike.
Fran Lieu, zoning chairwoman of the Jamaica Estates Civic Association, told of flagrant violations by builders and owners. She did tell of the special committee which Borough President Claire Shulman created to solve 10 of the most flagrant zoning violations in Queens. They did work hard and corrected eight of these cases, but not the one the Jamaica Estates Civic Association was most annoyed about.
As she has related at previous meetings, she told of the incompetence of the Buildings Department. She told of files which disappear from the Buildings Department office, buildings which are operating without a Certificate of Occupancy, stop-work orders which are ignored, owners who owe $20,000 or $30,000 in fines, and four-story buildings in R 1 areas zoned for one-story homes. She said the only punishment she knows of is the case of an architect who lost the right to self-certification.
The Department of Buildings is so dysfunctional that builders have to hire expediters to stand in line to have the necessary paperwork done so they can build legally.
Nagassar Ramgarib of the Queens Village Civic Association was a member of the Building Code Enforcement panel, and he told of a second house being built on a lot, and of basement apartments. He said that some of his neighbors did not like the fact that he complained of illegal building. He is one of the majority of people in New York City who buy a house in an area zoned in a certain way and want to maintain the quality of life they purchased.
Ivan Marakovcic of the North Richmond Hill Civic Association did say that some violations have been corrected, but many remain.
As I was leaving the meeting I talked with Jim Trent from the Creedmoor Civic Association. “I get nervous when I come to meetings like this one and hear scary stories about what people are doing in our residential communities.”
There is talk by Mayor Rudy Giuliani that he will hand the inspection function of the Building Department over to the Fire Department. Perhaps the fire officers can actually inspect and list irregularities — but what about fixing the rest of the dysfunctional structure of the Building Department?
GOOD NEWS OF THE WEEK
I just read that Gov. George Pataki marked the 90th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire where owners had locked the doors to keep out union organizers, and where a fire trapped the young Russian and Italian girls. One hundred and forty six, mostly young girls, died in the fire or when they leaped to their death to escape the flames. In 1911 there were no sprinklers, either. Today young Chinese girls work in similar conditions. Some managers delay paying the workers, many are illegal so they are afraid of complaining, then they close the shop.
The governor is adding more agents to the state inspection task force. The inspectors will have hand-held computers so they can check if these modern-day sweat shops are violating payroll or safety laws. Oh, New York University owns the of Triangle Shirtwaist factory building.
BAD NEWS OF THE WEEK
As I drive the streets of Queens I have discovered that the currently popular sport utility vehicles are dangerous because they're so big and bulky, and often have tinted windows that reduce the driver's visibility. They are as bad as trucks are in traffic — creating a blind area. They also use a lot of gasoline, creating an extra demand and forcing the price higher and pushing a need for drilling in our natural wilderness areas. The more we transport more oil or gasoline by ship or pipeline the more there is the danger of a disaster. They are helping to cause a gasoline shortage. Why can't we again research for more economical and environmentally sound sources of energy? We can’t breath carbon monoxide!
