Building permits extended due to pandemic
Building permits issued by the city building department before Gov. Andrew Cuomo put a temporary stop to all nonessential construction because of the COVID-19 pandemic will automatically be extended by about two months.
Cuomo’s order was issued March 27 and lifted May 26. City building permits valid during that time and considered to be nonessential will have their expiration dates extended by 62 days, the length of the state shutdown.
The extension will apply to projects like the Irish Cultural Center, a 16,213-square-foot multistory building planned for construction on property at 32 Abeel St. A building permit for construction of the center’s foundation was issued on June 18, 2019, and was to expire at midnight on Wednesday, June 17.
Some neighbors had sought to have the permit invalidated earlier based on a city law that requires work to start within six months of a permit being issued.
That law is now being examined by city lawmakers who were asked to look into why it was not enforced for the Irish Cultural Center
project. Instead of reviewing the law in regards to a specific project, though, they are looking at its enforceability in general.
During a virtual meeting of the Common Council’s Laws and Rules Committee on Wednesday, Alderman Jeffrey Ventura Morell, D-Ward 1, said he was concerned the building department took on the council’s legislative role by determining the law could not be enforced.
Also, both he and Council President Andrea Shaut said they were told the law was not being enforced because the city’s Building Safety division lacked the staff to follow up on each permit.
City Assistant Corporation Counsel Daniel Gartenstein said building department staff had determined the law was enforceable but “that there were circumstances in this particular case that led them to the conclusion that it would not be enforced in this instance, for a number of reasons.” He said there are also issues with staffing levels at the Building Safety division and their ability to monitor the six-month passage of every permit issued. Gartenstein said that issue is not equivalent to saying the statute in question is not enforceable.
Gartenstein also said the City Code isn’t enforced based on the circumstances of a particular situation and that building officials found there was no violation in this case. He also said an appeal of the Building Safety decision regarding the Irish Cultural Center permit was to be heard by the city Zoning Board of Appeals but was withdrawn by the person who filed it.
Ventura Morell, who chairs the Laws and Rules Committee, said that was not the information he initially was given. He said he would like to reach out to the state Department of State or New York Conference of Mayors to determine if any other municipalities have such a provision regarding building permits and, if they do, whether they have difficulty enforcing them. Ventura Morell said he also would like to know from Building Safety what it needs in terms of infrastructure to make the statute enforceable, or, if the statute is not enforceable, what would
need to be changed.
“So far, we just have a lot of questions and a lot of conflicting answers, and, as legislators, we can’t properly do our jobs if we don’t have the full picture,” Ventura Morell said in an email Thursday. “I’m hoping we can get some clarification so we can decide whether we need to amend this section of the code or give the building dep[artment] the necessary resources to enforce it.”
In a June 2 letter to Ventura Morell, city Building Safety Director Stephan Knox said there was no evidence of a permit ever being invalidated after six months based on the city law.
“Building Safety issued 1,350 permits last year, and we have no mechanism to alert us when each permit has reached the six months revocation limit,” Knox wrote. “The recognition of a permit’s potential invalidation date is only the first step in the process. An actual inspection of the premises would be needed to verify the presence or absence of construction work. I am of the belief that this code, if strictly enforced, would overwhelm the capacity of the department and frankly is not necessary.”