Wednesday, January 13, 2010

DOB giving concrete testing company a hard time

From The Real Deal:

The city's Department of Buildings is facing litigation from concrete testing company Big Apple Testing, a Queens-based firm whose license renewal was denied last September amid a citywide crackdown on concrete testing standards.

Big Apple Testing filed a so-called Article 78 suit against the buildings department Monday, asking the court for an injunction that would reinstate its concrete testing license or compel the agency to hold a hearing on the case.

Stuart Klein, attorney for Big Apple Testing, said no legitimate reason was given for the license denial, and speculated that the buildings department is looking to secretly weed out certain firms to cover for a widening scandal about construction defects.

"They're being cute," Klein said. "They look for guys that are coming up for renewal and say, 'we won't renew your license.' There appears to be no presentation of evidence and you're effectively boxing against shadows."

Court filings show that Big Apple had been licensed to test concrete for more than 18 years, involving thousands of sites per year. The firm has annual revenue of more than $900,000. Klein did not have specific details about previous projects the firm worked on.

A formal hearing is scheduled for Jan. 20.


But they look so professional...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Musta supported Bill Thompson for Mayor, now its payback time.

KSx said...

"But they look so professional..."

They sure do. I guess they have a concrete sniffing dog chained up in the back yard?

Anonymous said...

As an old-timer in this industry I’ll tell you guys that Big Apple Testing is probably one of the best in the NYC Metropolitan area. I have seen them operating in the field, and they are up to the task, and not taking punches from field pressures. I hope that they are succeeding in their efforts.

As far the Department of Building is concerned, they are running scared from all the crane collapses. Instead of rutting out major corruption in their department, they are ganging up on isolated companies. This has no rational. The persons running this department have no background in this industry; this is the most armature team ever in the department of building. I certainly hope that Mayor Bloomberg will overhaul this rotten department as he did with the education department.