Council Moves Against Scofflaw Builders
By MATTHEW CHAYES,
Under legislation approved yesterday by the City Council, the city would double-check blueprints submitted by builders who are twice convicted of falsely certifying that their plans comply with building and zoning codes.
Sponsors of the bills, which passed the council unanimously, say they're subjecting to new oversight architects and engineers who flagrantly blight neighborhoods and create dangerous conditions. Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign the bills.
The "self-certification" program began under Mayor Giuliani to spur economic development and speed construction by more easily issuing permits to architects and engineers who "self-certify" that their plans follow code.
Lawmakers and community activists, especially in the outer boroughs, have complained for years that the Department of Buildings — which audits about 20% of self-certified plans — has been overly laissez-faire by allowing code violators to self-certify with impunity.
The passage of the bills means scofflaw architects and engineers who get caught twice in a year and lose in an administrative hearing would need to make appointments to review future plans with a buildings department examiner.
Several members of the council, including Tony Avella of Queens and James Oddo of Staten Island, called the crackdown on unscrupulous self-certifiers a first step but pushed for the council to jettison self-certification entirely.
"Yes, would I like to eliminate self-certification totally? Of course," a sponsor of the legislation, Council Member James Vacca of the Bronx, said. "That's not happening at this point."
The council speaker, Christine Quinn, said the bills provide the right balance by giving enforcers "enough teeth to weed out the bad operators."
She veered away from some of her council colleagues by opposing efforts to end self-certification completely.
"What we don't want to do is ever put such a level of regulation that we unfairly or unnecessarily slow down the building process in the city of New York," the speaker said. "If the reforms we put in place don't go far enough and we see that, we can always come back to the question."
