New Building Inspectors Follow Increased Construction Deaths and Accidents
Last month Mayor Bloomberg and his administration announced that the city will hire sixty-three more safety inspectors in light of the alarming number of construction deaths and accidents in New York City. The fatal accidents and inspection flaws also led to the resignation of Patricia Lancaster, the first female New York Buildings’ Department Commissioner. The cost of adding the new inspectors will be $5.3 million a year, but the Mayor reported that the city is in the “midst of a historic building boom, and the added development demands that we devote sufficient resources to aggressively enforce site safety.”
One of the advantages of additional safety inspections will be that inspectors may make unannounced inspections for the purpose of determining whether previous safety violations have been rectified. In addition, the inspectors will oversee and tighten a certification program for architects and engineers to get rid of those who have numerous code and zoning violations.
As a result of insufficient building inspectors it was cited that flawed inspection practices had led to the wrongful death of two firefighters in a 2007 blaze at the Deutsche Bank Building in Lower Manhattan. Apparently, according to investigators, building inspectors had failed to notice several violations at that site, including the dismantling of a standpipe that would have carried water to the firefighters.
When Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, he promised to reform the Department of Buildings, a 116 year-old institution, plagued by corruption and accused of incompetence. While some progress has been made deaths so far in 2008 are more than all of 2007!
Construction workers, and all workers, have a right to work in a reasonably safe environment. If you, a friend or family member have been severely injured because of the negligence of your employer please call the workers compensation attorneys at Wingate, Russotti & Shapiro, LLC, for a free consultation. We have recovered more than $50,000,000.00 for the victims of construction accidents.
