Shoddy construction watch

Want to find out which new buildings in Brooklyn are shoddily built? Check out where the construction complaints are.

The rush to build in recently rezoned residential neighborhoods caused such complaints to skyrocket just over 18 percent in 2007 to 21,971. That’s both the largest number of complaints and greatest year-over-year increase for all five boroughs, according to the New York City Department of Buildings.

The statistic measures complaints related to active construction sites—the Department of Buildings and other city agencies don’t track complaints about finished apartment buildings—but construction-related filings can be the best indicator of structural problems that new buildings will face several years down the line, government officials said.

Evan Thies, senior advisor to New York City Council member David Yassky, said construction accidents in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area have increased by 600 percent in the last three years. “This is an indicator of the type of labor and manner of construction and design that these developers have employed,” Thies said.

“It is the best indicator of what is going to happen [in these new buildings] one, two, 10 years down the line. If construction is shoddy and dangerous, the finished product will be shoddy and dangerous,” he said.

Declining quality standards

Thies, who is planning on running for City Council himself, said the significant increase in the cost of construction and escalating Brooklyn property prices has caused some developers to cut corners on materials and labor. This, combined with the rapid pace of construction in Brooklyn, has placed a lot of demand on a limited supply of skilled labor crews, which has led to the hiring of cheap labor and the flouting of labor standards.

“The cost factors are clearly a part of it [the shoddy construction increase],” said New York City Council member Bill de Blasio. “With the land-rush environment we are seeing in Brooklyn, contractors feel tremendous pressure to do things more quickly. It just feels like the Wild West—there is a diminished sense of quality standards.”

De Blasio said that the most prevalent construction complaints he has witnessed in his district include construction sites that are not secure, violations of stop-work orders and high levels of dangerous debris. He cited one recent example of poor quality construction on Eighth Avenue in Park Slope, in which an existing building next to a construction site was evacuated because work on its neighbor had compromised the original building’s foundation.

Kate Lindquist, press secretary for the Department of Buildings, said that many of Brooklyn’s construction problems are excavation-related. “For Brooklyn, an area which has seen increased excavation work in the past years, we’ve found many contractors are failing to provide sufficient sheeting, shoring and bracing, and protection of neighboring buildings.”

The Eighth Avenue building is just one account of shoddy construction in Park Slope. The ongoing renovation of 598 6th Street in Park Slope has garnered press attention since 2005, when residents spent the winter without heating, according to a Dec. 13 Curbed.com report, which said more than 100 complaints have been filed to the Department of Buildings.

The 11-unit rental building, being converted into 15 units, accounted for 103 complaints to the Department of Buildings since original building permits were issued three years ago. Complaints have included after-hours work, illegal dumping and dangerous conditions, to name a few.

When the dust settles

Some of the more common post-construction problems Thies sees include plumbing and electrical issues, thin walls and developers not utilizing originally promised high-quality building materials.

“The most telltale sign of shoddy construction is cracks in the walls,” Thies said. “When you put up a building quickly and it’s not leveled off as it should be, as the building settles, cracks start showing up,” he said. “The question is, are they just in the drywall or [are they stemming from] the foundation?”

Thies explained that common faulty plumbing installations, such as connecting a plumbing valve in a wall improperly, “might not be a problem for the first five years, but then one day, you have a water leak that starts filling the space between two walls that could lead to a potential evacuation.”

Greenpoint and Williamsburg are seeing more examples of poor residential construction in areas that were formerly zoned for manufacturing, Thies said. “There has been a rush to get buildings up,” he said.

In 2007, Brooklyn saw a 3.6 percent year-over-year increase in construction permits issued, second to Manhattan’s 7.5 percent jump.

South Park Slope, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill witnessed a similar residential building rush as developers raced to build before 50-foot height caps were put into place. “Folks desperately tried to get in the ground before the height caps [took effect],” said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. The Park Slope cap was instituted in 2006, and the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill caps were put into place in 2007.

One project that now faces a potentially rushed timetable due to a pending vote on a height cap is a 16-story Karl Fischer Architect project on the corner of Grand and Driggs streets in Williamsburg, Thies said. “If they want to get this done, they have eight months to do it before the vote on the height cap,” he said. “Such a huge building in such a short time frame is really dangerous.”

Hamish Whitefield, the architect with Karl Fischer’s firm in charge of the project, did not return calls.

A number of sources identified architect Robert Scarano, president of Scarano Architects, as a repeat offender in the borough. As reported in November by The Real Deal, in late 2005, the Department of Buildings began to scrutinize Scarano projects for safety and zoning violations—and issued several stop-work orders on his projects and demanded reviews. In the midst of this, Scarano relinquished his self-certification rights; he did not return calls by press time.

So what steps are being taken to provide increased oversight? Sources said apparently, not enough. “I have not seen any real evidence of increased staffing at the Department of Buildings to enforce rules,” said Lander, who is also planning a City Council run.

De Blasio agreed that the inability to curb construction problems is largely a city staffing issue. “The Buildings Department has become more aggressive and is listening more to complaints, but they don’t have the staffing they need to deal with this kind of hyper-development,” he said. “I think they need a clearer set of definitions under the law giving them more power [to deny building permits].”

In efforts to curb construction problems, in August 2007, the agency formed a special enforcement team to identify and pursue professionals, owners and contractors who blatantly disregard code and zoning regulations, Lindquist said. The team is made up of multidisciplinary groups of attorneys, plan examiners, investigators and inspectors. “The team is working to proactively identify repeat offenders’ networks and patterns, create alternative actions, and is building cases to prosecute repeat offenders,” she added.

Regarding de Blasio’s comment on staffing, she declined to comment.

Brooklyn is not the only borough experiencing an increase in construction problems. In 2007, Queens logged a nearly 24 percent year-over-year increase in construction-related complaints, according to the Department of Buildings.

“The economic return that some of these developers can get for properties in Queens is driving hasty construction,” said Queens Council member Tony Avella. “Property values in Queens have stayed more stable than other boroughs.”

The most prevalent complaints he has witnessed include the violation of height restrictions, after-hours construction, and poor construction techniques, such as excavations that undermine neighboring properties.

“Down the line, we will find that a lot of this rushed new construction has been done improperly,” Avella said.