From the Daily News:Mayor Bloomberg ordered top aides to crack down on illegal apartments Tuesday - a day after a blaze in a chopped-up Bronx building killed a 12-year-old boy and his parents.
Conceding the city has not done enough, Bloomberg said he told the fire and buildings commissioners to "develop some new strategies for going after building owners that we suspect are most egregiously responsible for dangerous illegal conversions citywide."
He said the spread of illegal apartments "has been a problem for many, many years," and acknowledged the city's efforts have fallen short.
"Obviously it's just not enough," the mayor said.
The concession came as Bloomberg confirmed that the deathhouse at 2321 Prospect Ave. had been converted into a warren of illegal apartments.
"The real disgrace here is building owners who put profits ahead of people's lives ... and allow extremely dangerous conditions to persist," Bloomberg said.
One could say the same about the City.
From the Daily News:
Drug dealers commandeered the first floor of an illegally converted Bronx firetrap and wouldn't let city inspectors inside, the Daily News has learned.
FDNY and Buildings Department inspectors came to the Prospect Ave. building several times to follow up on complaints about apartments carved into single rooms, neighbors and law enforcement sources said.
"It was the drug dealers who wouldn't allow people inside," said a neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "The Fire Department came by so many times I can't even count."
Sounds like the City also had an NYPD problem in this area.
From the Daily News:
It's even worse in Queens. More than half the complaints about illegal apartments in the entire city came from Queens in 2010, records show.
The city has fielded 31 complaints this month at a two-family tan, brick home at 114-12 95th Ave., in Jamaica, including seven for illegal conversion. A neighbor who didn't want to be identified said: "It's a death-trap. It's like a hotel."
A similar situation appears to exist with a two-family at 206-12 46th Ave. in Bayside, which has logged 158 complaints.
"I've seen 10 to 15 people living there," one neighbor said. "It would be hard to escape a tragedy being so crowded."
From the Daily News:
Two years ago, it took just 10 days for inspectors to show up. Now it takes a month, records show.
"We don't call nobody anymore," said Herb Sanes, 89, who lives at the Jade Apartments in Flushing, Queens, where he and his wife, Lillian, 87, have repeatedly called the Buildings Department about illegal apartments - and nothing seems to change.
"You give up after a while."
The Jade Apartments, at 140-11 Ash Ave., are a prime example of the city's glacial pace at confronting the longstanding problem of illegal apartments.
On Nov. 10, 2009, a caller told the department there were four illegal apartments on the sixth floor. Five days later, the Daily News published a photo of one of the apartments, a one-bedroom clearly divided in two by Sheetrock to accommodate six people.
Despite the publicity, it took inspectors eight months - until July 21, 2010 - to respond. They checked twice and closed the case when they couldn't get in.
22 comments:
bloomberg has to force the n.y.c. council to quickly pass laws so that the d.o.b. inspector,after two denials at entry,can get police assistance .
all they have to do is check the many complaint records
on the d.o.b computer,that have "denied entry". and follow up.
i will believe it when i see it?the owners should also be forced to pay back taxes on the illegal income ,not reported.
Illegal apartments? Let me guess. Inhabited by illegal aliens that Bloomberg continues to want to INVADE us? Like a plague of LOCUSTS?
Of course we won't mention the ILLEGAL & DANGEROUS businesses that some Orientals operate out of their apartments in Floo-shing.
i.e.
like garment factory piece-work shops.
Puh-leeze...the cops get paid off by these drug dealers to look the other way.
Where's an honest officer like Frank Serpico when you need him?
"You give up after a while."
Folks attempt to do the right things and are frustrated by the City's lack of response or urgency. Perhaps there should be a uniform rental process the landlord must perform to be in compliance to rent living space. The benefit is to weed out illegal folks from renting, collect taxes and of course insure the living space comply s with safety and code.
"bloomberg has to force the n.y.c. council to quickly pass laws so that the d.o.b. inspector,after two denials at entry,can get police assistance ."
The citizens can't get police assistance in Queens, does anyone really think that they are really going to handle hundreds of more building inspector calls to go to an illegal apartment?
Also since most of the apartments are inhabited by illegals after a few times of the inspector citing these apartments the immigrant groups will complain about the city harassing them and it will stop, because the city does not want to annoy its favorite type of ctizen, the illegal alien.
Cry me a river. If the NIMBY types would allow LEGAL apartments to be built, there wouldn't be a market for illegal apartments. You stop all of this stuff from being built to "preserve the neighborhood" (aka keep away the Darkies, spics, gooks and assorted ne'er-do-wells), then act surprised when they move into illegal conversions. I'm shocked that someone would dare try to meet demand.
"Despite the publicity, it took inspectors eight months - until July 21, 2010 - to respond. They checked twice and closed the case when they couldn't get in."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There lies the problem. When ispectors can't get in, they just close the case, and the complaint just disappears.
"You stop all of this stuff from being built to "preserve the neighborhood" (aka keep away the Darkies, spics, gooks and assorted ne'er-do-wells)"
We stop all this stuff because there isn't the infrastructure to support it. We have blackouts, floods, etc. and the neighborhoods aren't even built to capacity yet.
Todd is funny. If the parts of Brooklyn had a nimby attitude then maybe their neighborhoods would have been protected by the invasion of hipsters and yuppies.
Where were you when these neighborhoods were being destroyed? Neighborhoods where people of color were the majority are unrecognizable because of over development. Try walking from Williamsburg to Greenpoint and ask yourself what happened to the people who were pushed out by gentrification. The reason for the high cost of housing is a lot more complicated than your implication of racism.
Enforce immigration laws and enforce building laws and codes. If they have no place to live, they will go home. Ten people in a one room apartment is too many and a fire hazard. If Bloomburg loves the illegals so much, let him build dorms in Manhattan. He's only interested in cheap labor and doesn't care that the city and its services (schools, hospitals, welfare and infrastructure) are way overtaxed.
Todd is funny. I guess he has never had to sit in hour long traffic jams, tried to squeeze on a jammed bus or train or see our over crowded schools.
Because if he did he would see that people are against development because the city keeps thinking that it can build and build and build and the infrastructre built 100 years ago will handle it without massive improvements.
Bloomberg loves his developer friends and I'm sure he gets cut into their profits. He doesn't care if the city is overcrowded and overdeveloped. He only cares about money. His money!
The overcrowding is a direct result of lax immigration and influx of illegals.
Most fires in "deathtraps" occured in recent yearsat illegal SROS'.
The Bronx had two: Brooklyn at 86 st; Woodside, Corona Queens etc.
Exactly how can the FDNY, DOB & NYPD tackle these problems.
They are a proactive solution to a bigger problem.
One question the mayor needs to answer, how can day laborers afford 1,800 - 2,000 rent for a "legal" apt.?
Todd (LOL) certainly sounds like a gay, Gook (trying to pass for Anglo) troll to me.
I mean "Todd"...like who really has a name like that in the 21st century.
Try another handle Mr. Huang!
Maybe Mr. Phyllis.
So we should all live on top of one another...cheek to jowl...in squalid Asiatic ghettos with our noses up our neighbors' asses?
No Hong Kong living conditions here please.
I Corona you can often find 25 people in an apartment.
That's unsafe and uncivilized.
You idiots who attack Todd by calling him gay or trying to identify his ethnicity are not better than him. This isn't about ethnicity or sexual orientation. Even Chinatown and homosexual neighborhoods have been adversely affected by over development and greedy landlords.
Buzz off fudge packer!
This article talks of illegals living in these basements. But there is more than that. Many legal citizens have illegally converted their basements. One of the creators of this site has denied DOB access to his basement 9 times. So let's not blame this problem on immigration. This is a civic leader who calls upon DOB to enforce their rules, just not for my house.
No one created this website but me. I have never been visited by a DOB inspector and my basement is full of junk.
the builder who got 40 violations ,while demolishing a 60x 100 house,( with out a permit), and building a 2x2 with illegal cellars, turned in all property owners on my block. we passed inspection.
he paid $25,000. in fines.
we got more absentee landlords and conversion headaches.
our cellars are cluttered also. we join the club with Crappy. this is not a violation,Bubba.
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