Images from the collapse at 34 Conselyea Street (source: Brooklyn365.com)

Lucille Maundrell’s three-story Williamsburg property was getting an additional floor and penthouse when the structure went tumbling to the ground yesterday, trapping one worker under the rubble and injuring four others.

Maundrell, the mother of aptsandlofts.com president David Maundrell, owns the brick residential building at 34 Conselyea Street, which was slated to have five residences following the renovation. No one was living there at the time of the collapse.

“It appears that critical support members were removed from the building and we believe that contributed to the collapse,” said Tony Sclafani, a spokesperson for the Department of Buildings.

An investigation into who is responsible for the collapse is ongoing as the city hopes to speak with both the contractor, Brooklyn-based China Perfect Construction Corp., and the engineer, Anthony Gennaro, of Manalapan, N.J., Sclafani said, noting that the owner is ultimately responsible for the property. [more]

The Department of Buildings said it will grant Big Apple Testing an opportunity to discuss the rejection of its license renewal, following a ruling earlier this month by a New York State Supreme Court judge. New York Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger ruled that the agency must grant the Whitestone, Queens-based firm a “face-to-face meeting” with a neutral representative who can determine whether the firm should get its license renewed. DOB officials said they previously denied the license because Big Apple Testing continued working after the license expired in September 2008. They also said the firm failed to provide a two-year review as required by its Cement and Concrete Reference Laboratory and for other reasons. [more]

The city is investigating a Queens business believed to have made over 1,000 bogus calls to a city complaint hotline since September, claiming that homeowners were illegally converting their basements into apartments. The claims, called in from three different phones to the 311 hotline, incited a wave of inspections across Flushing, Whitestone and other northeast Queens neighborhoods that resulted in few substantive violations and many angry residents. The city is required to send inspectors after any “illegal conversion” complaint, according to Department of Buildings spokesperson Tony Sclafani, and the department is being particularly proactive after a fire in illegally-subdivided Woodside, Queens apartments last month turned deadly. However, local homeowners suspect a building industry firm has been filing the false complaints in an attempt to create clients, especially after they received letters from firms offering basement-legalization services within days of being hit with violations. [Post]

New York City construction accidents have spiked 40 percent this year through last Friday, up to 158 incidents, compared to the same time period in 2008, according to the Department of Buildings. The number of on-site injuries also increased by 30 percent. An early report on the data attributes the increase in accidents to the rising number of workers falling on the job — the number of worker falls has doubled since last year, according to the report. Some in the department also say that construction workers and foremen have been more vigilant about reporting incidents, which would account for the higher number recorded. “There is a heightened awareness of safety throughout the construction industry, which has prompted the reporting of more incidents,” Tony Sclafani, a buildings department spokesperson, said.