NYC ignores 99% of lead hazards: study
The city collected just $10,000 in fines against landlords for violating its strict lead laws since 2004 — a less-than-1-percent sliver of the nearly $2 million in penalties handed out, according to a damning report Tuesday.
“The city has done virtually no enforcement in fining landlords,” said Matthew Chachere, a lawyer for the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corp., one of five city advocacy groups that collaborated on the 20-page study. “This is the city’s job.”
Culling public data since the city’s stringent lead-safety regulations — Local Law 1 — went on the books in 2004, the groups found that the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings hit landlords with 2,212 penalties related to the toxic substance to the tune of $1,976,870.
But the city failed to follow through, actually collecting only $10,190, about .5 percent of that sum, the study determined.
The study’s authors — which also included New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and the New York League of Conservation Voters — posited the “shockingly low collection rate” may be tied to offkilter staffing priorities at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which issues the violations.
By contrast, DOHMH hit streetcart vendors with millions in fines over the same period, including more than $1.6 million in tickets for setting up in a bus stop or too close to driveways, subway entrances or crosswalks, the report found — with 35 percent of cases resulting in their making a payment to the city.
“That’s sad and shameful,” said City Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan), among those politicians on hand for the report’s unveiling on the steps of City Hall. “Let’s be clear: Having a home with lead poisoning isn’t just a public-health issue. Safe and secure housing is a human right.”
The study noted that, “This disparity could exist for various reasons, including differences in staff levels across DOHMH or how easy certain types of violations may be to detect and enforce.”
City Hall claimed the study was based on “incomplete information.”
“We vigorously dispute the results of this report,” said spokesman William Baskin-Gerwitz.
But families who suffered through life in homes coated with the hazardous substance — once commonly found in household paint and particularly harmful to children — are left in want of answers.
“The lead dust was so bad that our doctor told me and my child to wear face masks in our home,” said Holly Slayton, a single mom to an 11-year-old daughter who reported fears of toxic particles to the city during renovations of her East Village apartment building in 2017. “It smells like it’s rotting.”
The study said it wasn’t immediately clear what fines, if any, had been levied against that building’s since-ousted owner, Raphael Toledano, who could not be reached for comment by The Post.