By Bob Harris
Briarwood Civic Association President Sey Schwartz used the front page of the civic’s May newsletter to discuss illegal apartments and zoning. For years, this issue has concerned homeowners and residents throughout Queens. People buy a home in a community with a certain quality of life and don’t want pressures caused by illegal apartments, building or commercial activities.
Schwartz writes, “Throughout Queens this practice has gone unchecked by a virtually dysfunctional New York City Department of Buildings, whose staff levels, as well as that of the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development, were reduced in response to the city’s financial difficulties in the late 70s and early 90s. For too many years, the enforcement of city building and housing codes has been woefully ineffective.
“Zoning regulations shape the character of each block, the community and the city. But the dynamics of massive violations of building code and zoning regulations by unprincipled developers, new home owners who hold our laws in contempt, their land use, lobbyists and demographic pressures, coupled with the Department of Buildings’ existing policy of self certification by engineers and architects employed by property owners have, for too long, pushed our residential communities into a downward slope of disorderly urban character.”
The Briarwood newsletter printed some of the proposals to remedy this situation. They were adopted by the Queens Civic Congress, which is the one-hundred member umbrella organization of civic organizations in Queens. Proposed remedies include:
* Prompt and decisive actions must be taken by the city against illegal apartments, single-room occupancies and inappropriate commercial uses in residential buildings.
* Increased inspection and enforcement by the city Department of Buildings, as well as the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development to achieve compliance.
* Implement state legislation to increase inspectors’ access to buildings with suspected violations, and to allow the filing of tax liens on unpaid Environment Control Board fines.
* DOB must dedicate one full-time inspector to each community board. This will be cost-effective since the fines would pay their salaries.
* Establish a multi-agency task force to coordinate services among the Fire Department, Buildings Department and other agencies to report to the Office of the Mayor.
* Establish a program to educate new and established homeowners of relevant building codes and zoning laws and the respective fines for noncompliance.
* Require the Police Department to assist and cooperate with the Buildings Department to enforce Stop Work orders where necessary.
* No further expansion of self-certification for new buildings or alteration permits or correction of violations. Hire the inspectors!
* Support long-term planning as a means of preserving stable neighborhoods.
* Create additional contextual districts to reflect the existing residential configurations, density and use.
* Mandate community review of publicly funded federal, state and city agencies’ major proposals.
* Require legislative review and oversight of Board of Standards and Appeals decisions to grant variances.
These suggestions are the result of discussions and hearings by civic leaders from the Queens Civic Congress. The aim is to maintain and improve the quality of life in our communities.
GOOD AND BAD NEWS OF THE WEEK
Recent headlines in all the major papers told of one of the biggest cocaine seizures in years. A photo shows Police Commissioner Ray Kelly behind packages of more than two tons of cocaine. This is a positive step, but I again fear how much was still smuggled into the country and how much money the mob and terrorists are making from the drug trade.
I know that all our governments are working to stop the flow of drugs but the crime and human destruction caused is terrible to consider. We are paying farmers not to grow opium in Afghanistan and Colombia and we are spending billions to stop the flow of drugs, but we must spend and do much more, because drugs are destroying the fiber of our society.
