The city’s Department of Buildings responded to New York’s building boom in 2015 with a significant increase in the number of stop-work orders issued at unsafe construction sites.
There were 8,326 stop-work orders as of Dec. 18 of last year – a 17 percent increase over 7,120 such orders in all of 2014. The trend isn’t new, however; in fact, it mirrored the nearly 18 percent spike in such violations from 2013, when there were 6,050 stop-work orders, to 2014.
The 2015 total represents a significant increase from the 5,637 stop-work orders issued by the Department of Buildings in 2011, according to Politico, and is tied to an increase in the number of new building permits – which jumped 8.5 percent year-over-year in 2015 — approved by the agency.
The figures also indicate that the increase in stop-work orders considerably outpaced the city’s building boom, with increased development bringing more attention to reportedly unsafe working conditions at construction sites across the city.
New York also saw an alarming increase in the number of construction-related accidents and deaths in 2015, which led to a city crackdown that targeted bogus construction safety certifications at job sites. [Politico] – Rey Mashayekhi