By Alex Davidson
Hiring more buildings inspectors and reducing the number of architects and engineers who certify their own building plans are two ways Borough President Helen Marshall believes could stop the rash of illegal conversions in many Queens neighborhoods.
Marshall and city Department of Buildings representative Sam Scherter addressed the Borough President’s Task Force on Illegal Conversions Monday morning and discussed possible legislative recommendations to curb a problem that overcrowds schools and aggravates traffic in the borough.
“You’ve got to catch (the illegal conversions),” Marshall said. “If you wait until the building is up, it might be too late. It pays to be nosy.”
Marshall said the private processes of self and professional certification need to be reviewed to see if they influence the number of illegal conversions. Under the professional certification process architects and engineers are able to bypass a city plan review and obtain a building permit more quickly by vouching for the integrity of their own projects.
Professional certification was introduced in 1995 to spur economic development and keep pace with increases in building requests, said Ilyse Fink, spokeswoman for the DOB. She also said there is a difference between professional certification and self-certification, which only applies for licensed trade workers, such as plumbers and electricians.
Members of the task force, representing local community boards, civic associations and public officials, said engineers and architects who self-certify their building plans ignore zoning laws because they do not come into formal contact with the Department of Buildings. They also told Scherter that his agency was not responding quickly enough to their complaints about specific illegally converted houses.
“There are ways architects remain within the laws, but they’re stretching it,” Scherter responded. He said his office investigates 20 percent of all building plans, whether or not they are professionally certified, for potential illegal conversions or other zoning violations.
But Fink disagreed with the borough president and task force members who said that professional certification causes or adds to the number of illegal conversions. She said plans that are professionally certified are different from completely illegal building modifications because the architects must obtain a certificate of occupancy from the city before people can move into the modified residence.
“There is no relation between the two,” she said. “There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of professional certification.”
Scherter said general contractors, unlike architects and engineers, are not licensed by the state or city and may be responsible for the majority of illegal conversions. Fink said the general contractors could be contributing to the problem and that Department of Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster is looking into requiring them to be licensed.
But task force members also complained about unresolved cases where illegal conversions have been reported.
Scherter conceded that there is a substantial backlog of residents’ complaints against illegal conversions, but could not specify the exact number remaining to be examined by city officials. He said even when inspectors examine illegally converted buildings, it takes a long time to renovate the buildings back to comply with city zoning laws.
“It’s hard to alter illegal conversions because there are constitutional issues,” he said. “Most of the time, we only take down structures when they’re in danger of collapsing.”
Marshall said the Department of Buildings is consistently understaffed and that she has requested more personnel to speed up and expand inspections of illegal conversions.
She also reminded task force members that both Buildings and the Consumer Affairs Department maintain a database of negligent contractors, architects and engineers who have helped construct and have been penalized for illegal conversions. Marshall said Consumer Affairs will help pay a percentage of the construction costs along with residents to convert an illegal conversion to comply with city code.
She said her task force will ultimately make formal recommendations concerning professional certification and the understaffing to the City Council and Buildings Department for legislative solutions to curb illegal conversions.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
Reach reporter Alex Davidson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 156.
