One year ago, in January 2020, the Expert Panel assigned by Mayor Bill de Blasio to study the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway issued its Final Report. Mayor de Blasio in 2019 appointed the seventeen-person Expert Panel* of which I was a member, following the angry rejection of New York City DOT’s plan for reconstructing the section of the BQE adjacent to Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn. City DOT presented its plan publicly September 2019. The … <Read More>
Search Results for: Building Safety
Reducing Racial Bias Embedded in Land Use Codes
Even though the Supreme Court struck down race-based land use controls over a hundred years ago in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917) it has long been known that zoning continues to create or increase racial and economic segregation. Today communities across the U.S. are reexamining their zoning regulations to create more equal, equitable, inclusive, and resilient communities by removing requirements, limitations, or prohibitions that disproportionately and negatively impact individuals based on race … <Read More>
Contractor fined following worker injury
General contractor fined $25,000 for its failure to safeguard job site for construction workers. An employee of a sheet metal subcontractor was injured when he fell approximately 16 feet through a gap between the edge of a sidewalk shed and the face of a building located at 540 West 53rd Street in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. Buildings cited GC Mega Contracting Group for its failure to safeguard “all persons and property” by not closing the … <Read More>
Cracked windowsill summons voided
City issued summons for hazardous cracked windowsill on sixth floor of building. On March 26, 2019, a Department of Buildings officer observed a cracked exterior windowsill on the sixth floor of a building owned by Aspen Companies on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. The officer testified that if water were to enter the crack and freeze, a piece of the windowsill would break off, fall six stories, and injure a pedestrian below. Buildings issued Aspen … <Read More>
Public Advocate’s Landlord List Upheld
The Public Advocate identified and ranked the City’s 100 worst landlords based on public data compiled by various City agencies. Public Advocate Letitia James annually published “The 100 Worst Landlords in New York City,” or the “Watchlist.” James identified and ranked landlords based primarily on the total number of open violations each landlord received from the Department of Buildings and Housing Preservation and Development.
Kamran Hakim, owner of two residential buildings in Manhattan, appeared on … <Read More>
Public Health: Tobacco, Sugars, Trans Fats and Salt
In the twentieth century, primary causes of death and disability in America changed from communicable diseases to chronic diseases. This shift was in part due to the successes of public health as better sanitary conditions and immunizations reduced the burden of communicable diseases. The shift, however, was also due to changes in lifestyle and longer life expectancies that caused the rates of chronic diseases to increase.