The city is flexing its regulatory muscles in its effort to stem the recent tide of construction accidents.
The Department of Buildings has permanently revoked the license and pulled 486 work permits associated with Brooklyn-based contractor MRMD NY, citing over $600,000 in unpaid fees and penalties.
Buildings commissioner Rick Chandler framed the action as aimed at increasing public safety amid the wave of new construction sweeping the city.
“This case should once again remind construction professionals that the department will not tolerate any abuse of the construction codes at the expense of worksite or public safety,” Chandler said in a statement.
MRMD agreed last November to pay all its outstanding fines to the city, totaling over $860,000. But by Aug. 31, the company had earned another $600,000 in additional fees over continued safely violations at its sites, Politico reported.
The company, which has 433 active job sites in the city, has filed its own formal complaint against the city, saying it’s being treated unfairly.
City officials described the move, to strip a license and permits solely over unpaid fees, as “unprecedented.”
The city’s construction boom has been accompanied by a wave of injuries and deaths to workers and passers-by, most recently at Sherman Towers at 363 East 7th Street on the Upper East Side. [Politico] – Ariel Stulberg