Building inspectors team up with sheriffs to stop unsafe construction

A pilot program in Queens will pair building inspectors up with sheriffs to crack down on unsafe construction sites:

Got trouble with a construction site? Now you can call a sheriff.

Indeed, thanks to a pilot program announced by the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) last Wednesday, residents of Queens may only need to do it once before the city takes action.

The new initiative in Queens would create two teams, each composed of a DOB inspector and two NYC sheriffs. Each team, armed with a list of sites that have active stop work orders against them, would patrol the borough looking for illegal activity, which they would subsequently shut down. [BDS]

This is great news.

Illegal construction is a huge problem in this city. The fact that 60 people showed up to a meeting to discuss the sheriff/inspector program is an indication of what a chronic problem these sites are for residents.

Too often, residents face a Catch-22 when they want to complain about disruptive or unsafe construction: The building inspectors are unarmed civilians whom unscrupulous contractors can just brush off; but the police don't know how to handle building code complaints.

This new program offers some hope that stop work orders will be enforced. Unfortunately, these teams will only have the power to send workers home for the day--but by increasing enforcement, authorities are de facto punishing illegal work more severely. If stop work orders actually stop work most of the time, contractors will have more of an incentive to avoid the safety lapses that get work suspended in the first place.

Comments

[aeroman]

I like that the article deals with DOB's history of corruption. Perceptions of corruption and favoritism in building code enforcement are among the biggest obstacles to mobilizing for reform. I don't think people are surprised that builder behavior can be more or less lawless at times. They'll be more upset about that if they believe that that lawlessness is asymmetrically on the builder side in the builder-inspector relationship. For all I know, that's already overwhelmingly the case, but I know I've run into skeptics.

This is definitely an interesting program.

[Gabriel Nichols]

I understand why it is important to actually enforce these stop-work orders but I'm concerned that this will hurt the constroction workers, particularly day-workers, who will not be getting paid for the day they're sent home but be too late to pick up time at another site. I can see a real drop in workers reporting unsafe conditions if the only enforable impact is to send everyone home. Now if there was a real impact on the contracter, say a blanket denial of permits for any contracter with an open stop-work at one of their sites that would be a real push for them to start taking saftey seriously.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I agree, Gabriel. I think your solution would be a lot better than just adding on enforcement.