Lots of new construction ends up in court

From The Real Deal:

Construction defects, alleged or otherwise, are a hallmark of any building boom, and the last five years have been no exception. While there are no publicly available numbers on the frequency of such complaints, attorneys say latent defects usually spring up a year or so after buildings open. Many say they are already seeing an uptick, given that construction has been unrelenting since 2012. And they say it’s safe to assume that another wave of lawsuits is about to hit.

Unlike during the financial crisis, when cash-strapped developers may have cut corners to avoid abandoning projects altogether, today’s developers are racing against the clock — and each other — to complete projects in a soft market that’s bracing for even more inventory.

Building boom brings shoddy construction

From The Real Deal:

Construction defects, alleged or otherwise, are a hallmark of any building boom, and the last five years have been no exception. While there are no publicly available numbers on the frequency of such complaints, attorneys say latent defects usually spring up a year or so after buildings open. Many say they are already seeing an uptick, given that construction has been unrelenting since 2012. And they say it’s safe to assume that another wave of lawsuits is about to hit.

Water's Edge development is falling apart

From The Wave:

On Friday, Jan. 13, owners of the condominiums, Water’s Edge in Arverne stood in front of their ‘shoddily constructed’ city-financed dream of first-time homeownership for low and moderate income people and proclaimed it a nightmare.

Council Member Donovan Richards stood in solidarity with the homeowners, asking the Briarwood Organization for one simple thing.

“Just do the right thing,” said Richards. “One of the many dreams we have in life is to become the owner of our very own home. Many people, particularly in our city, never get that opportunity, never mind an affordable home. Unfortunately, for many of the residents here, that dream turned into a reality and then a nightmare. Briarwood needs to make this right and if they don’t, we are calling on HPD to refuse to work with their organization on any subsidized projects.”

On Sept. 1, 2016, the condominium board sued the Briarwood Organization Arverne /Briarwood II, LLC, its principals, Vincent L. Riso, Raymond Riso, James Riso, Howard Goodman, and Briarwood Properties, Inc. who built the 130-unit complex consisting of 65 two-story buildings, with a condo unit on each floor after winning the bid of the Request For Proposal (RFP) issued by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) during the Bloomberg administration.

New buildings built like crap

From the NY Times:

It took just three years for balconies to crack and concrete to flake from the facade of one Brooklyn condominium. Another building was prone to flooding, because the storm drainage system was never connected to the sewage system. With buildings rising at a pace not seen in years, some fear that shoddy construction could be making a comeback, too.

As developers feverishly break ground on projects to cash in on soaring property values, lawyers, architects and engineers say they are fielding more calls from residents complaining of structural defects in newly built homes. There is growing concern that some developers are repeating the mistakes of the last housing boom and delivering substandard product. As more residents settle into new buildings, the trickle of calls could soon turn into a flood.

Affordable housing is crappily built

From the NY Times:

Five years ago, Arisleyda Estrella and Ron Skinner could not wait to move into their first home, a new three-story row house in Brooklyn with a big living room, hardwood floors, a front stoop and a small garden.

But the thrill of winning a lottery that enabled them to buy one of 31 city-subsidized houses set aside for moderate-income families in a Bedford-Stuyvesant community wore off quickly. Like her neighbors, Ms. Estrella and her husband said they had battled ever since with the builder and implored city officials to deal with many problems, like cracks in the foundation walls, a leaky roof, a sinking backyard, windows that move with the wind, crumbling front steps and an undersized boiler.

“We love our home,” Ms. Estrella said of the house, which is on Pulaski Street. “The architecture is wonderful; it’s well thought out. But we got the worst craftsmanship. We trusted the city. We feel like we were bamboozled.”

Ms. Estrella and other owners of city-subsidized housing insist that oversight is critically needed for one of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s main initiatives, the largest municipal housing program in the country.

They, along with a group of construction unions, support a bill that the City Council approved unanimously last month that would require the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to publicly disclose information about builders of affordable housing, including how they were selected, the size of their subsidies, construction complaints for each project and workers’ wages.

But Mr. Bloomberg has vowed to veto the legislation, saying a key element of the bill would be costly and irrelevant to resolving construction-related complaints at what city housing officials say are a relatively small number of projects. The City Council will almost certainly override the veto.

Shoddy construction kills

From CBS 2:

It takes just a few minutes — and everything and everyone you love could be gone.

CBS 2’s Lou Young has obtained a dramatic new video demonstrating the dangers of a popular new type of house construction.

One spark becomes a firestorm, but there is a solution.

Engineers vouch for the stuff. It is light and strong, able to bear weight, able to stand up to stress. Superior, many people say, in every way to standard stick construction.

That is, except when on fire.

Live fire tests tell the tale, with light-weight roof sections and floors failing four times faster than traditional construction, and usually gone in minutes... The man who conducted these tests told CBS 2’s Young firefighters are less likely to attempt interior rescues when light construction is present.

Death at Columbia project

From DNA Info:

A 69-year-old construction worker was killed and two others seriously injured when a violation-plagued building recently bought by Columbia University collapsed in Harlem

Thursday morning during demolition work, authorities said.

The tragic incident unfolded at the one-story structure at 604-606 W. 131st St., near Broadway, about 7:51 a.m., FDNY officials said.

All three victims — Juan Ruiz, 69, King Range, 60, and Sakim Kirby, 30, all of The Bronx — were pulled from the wreckage by hand. Ruiz and Range were rushed to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital with life-threatening injuries and Kirby suffered serious injures, fire officials said.

Ruiz was later pronounced dead.

"I just seen brick falling on the workers. I just seen people running towards it but they couldn’t get them out," said witness Willy Katende, 46, who lives nearby.
"It sounded like bomb — boom. It came down so fast," he added. "The whole thing came down.”

According to FDNY and Department of Buildings offficials, the workers were cutting a structural beam near the building's perimeter wall when steel, concrete and red brick began raining down on them.

Two of the workers, including Ruiz, were partially buried by rubble near the center of the building. The third was buried near the building's northwest corner about 50 feet from them, officials said.

Scarano owners shitting bricks

From NY Magazine:

New Yorkers who’ve bought Scarano apartments—particularly those angling to sell—are grappling with his downfall.

One East Williamsburger who has had her ceiling replastered is fatalistic. “Until the leaks are fixed, I can’t worry about selling this place,” she says. (She and others interviewed for this story requested anonymity for fear of scaring off buyers.) Another North Brooklyn owner says the ductwork in her apartment’s HVAC system doesn’t meet code and adds that the six-story building has no wheelchair access. Others single out “sweaty” windows—possibly a sign of poor insulation—and misrouted cables. Attorney Adam Leitman Bailey, who represents disgruntled owners at eight Scarano projects, says some clients had bedrooms that didn’t meet city specifications and therefore were called closets. When your two-bedroom abruptly becomes reclassified as a one-bedroom, the resale value will likely be downsized as well.

LIC shitbox gets even shittier...

Courtesy of Restless:

...from the off-the-shelf Frankenstein look of its budget design, the building is going to turn a profit long before the Lackadaisically-built Haus, and its owner will be able to move so far away -- like a buccaneer whaler who sails away and leaves the stinking carcass on some stranger's beach -- that they never have to see it again.

I'm so jealous. I wish I could live in such a modern, well-designed building...right next to the glorious Pulaski Bridge.

You may recall this as Miss Heather's "art sucko" masterpiece.