From the Queens Courier:
According to Department of Buildings (DOB) spokesperson Tony Sclafani, the agency fields roughly 20,000 complaints regarding illegal conversions annually, most of which come from Queens. To manage the high volume of complaints from the borough, the DOB created a separate component called the Quality of Life Unit, which is solely dedicated to dealing with Queens-based grievances.
Illegal conversions garner a B rating on the DOB’s priority-arranged scale of complaints — the same level earned by improper fencing, exposed elevator shafts and malfunctioning boilers.
Many neighborhoods throughout the borough are speckled with complaints against residences they believe may be unlawfully harboring multiple families. Ed Wendell, president of the Woodhaven Residents Block Association, said his organization receives several calls each month regarding illegal conversions.
“If you walk by a two-family house and they have 17 satellite dishes, you know there’s a problem,” he said.
Wendell said those most likely to spot these unlawful abodes are neighbors who are reluctant to turn over their street mates for fear of retaliation.
A Woodhaven resident, who wished to remain anonymous, estimates that he has complained about illegal apartments nearly 80 times. Since moving to the neighborhood in the mid 1980s, the resident said he’s seen his block undergo a transformation as mailboxes triple and parking is suddenly impossible.
The local claimed that the increase in residences and people has caused property values in the neighborhood to plummet, something he said translates to low-priced rentals and low-income residents whom he believes bring crime to the neighborhood and degenerate the quality of the area.
8 comments:
The residents of Queens have been screaming about this situation for more than 30yrs. It's nothing new and will never ever have a resolution. Building Inspectors either turn a blind eye or don't know what they're doing as this detrimental problem continues and continues. Many lives have been los. Our elected pols jump all over the problem and say something must be done but do nothing. DOB is a terrible agency that needs to be re-accessed and hire people who know what they're looking at. Have you ever read the comments on DOB's BIS site, it's laughable. How sad is that. The agents who never see anything wrong with a site should be held responsible for lives that are lost. They should be brought before their peers and tried for the horrific situation that they caused. Do not pass Go or collect $200 go directly to jail!!!!!!!
This story could not have expressed this issue more clearly - thank you!
Isn't the Fire Department involved in enforcement now? What happened?
Try a web site from your mobile device... it will tell you where the illegal apartments are and what problems the tenants have experienced ... mold, smoke alarms, lack of heat, etc. Essentially building maintenance reports though the ones I found were dated 2010 and 2011.
www.uhpartments.com
After using www.uhpartments.com to get the addresses, go to Housing Preservation and Development and research the address.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/home/home.shtml
Where do you expect these illegal aliens to live? The politicians cram them into our borough with open arms, yet they are dumbfounded when they find out about illegal apartments and do nothing. The fire department and police have a hands-off policy when it comes to illegals. That's why the middle class are selling t and are moving out of NY.
The middle class ain't selling or moving out of most Queens nabes....only the ghetto ones like Corona, etc.
which were always lower working class from the days they were first built.
I was a cop in the 102 pct in 95-96. There was a story in the Sunday NYT on this subject and had a nice little chart with rights of both renters and ladlords of these illegal dwellings.I made hundreds of copies and most cops carried several on patrol.Handed them out at every landlord tennant dispute we were called to....... Made the job easy,quick........and the amount of jobs decreased. To say the least,the renter held the trump card and the landlords always moaned " but the real estate said it was okay to do this"......
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