2nd Ave subway construction setback

From the NY Post:

Construction on the Second Avenue Subway is really making all the local stops.

The $4.5 billion MTA mega-project has suffered yet another setback, this time due to shaky apartment buildings.

MTA crews can't carry out permits for blasting underground rock near the two unstable structures near East 92nd Street until both are shored up, the MTA and city Department of Buildings said yesterday. Both had to be evacuated in June.

While the delay won't push back the subway's overall July 2017 completion date -- which was recently changed from 2015 and originally slated for 2012 -- workers since July have resorted to digging with machinery instead of using faster blasting methods, officials said.

One of the buildings -- 1772 Second Ave. -- has already been stabilized, the MTA said. Tenants returned there several weeks ago.

MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin called the building conditions "pre-existing."

The buildings were evacuated in a frenzied rush in June.

Tenants scrambled back from vacations and work to grab personal items before they moved in with friends or checked into hotels.

City documents show that the two buildings had structural issues for years. By 2006, one was leaning north by 10 inches, and another had a crumbling facade, records show.

So the long-standing problems were known about, yet new problems were not anticipated by either DOB or MTA? Shouldn't the conditions of these buildings have been addressed before the construction proceeded?