See today's www.gowanuslounge.com and www.curbed.comWhat is it going to take for this city to get it?
for details. (This story is very oddly missing from the MSN
and Yahoo homepages as this post is written, and
perhaps others as well?)
WHEN??? are the officials, the politicians, the authorities going to get it? Over-development and irresponsible development KILLS. So many residents have been screaming about this for months yet this horror continues anyhow. We continue to scream into the wind yet we are asked to live here, pay taxes here, raise our children here, contribute to the betterment of our collective society here....
Is this the price of progress in our town? Are we really willing to pay for over-development and irresponsible development with our own innocent blood? Mayor Bloomberg and Lieutenant Governor Paterson need to ACT IMMEDIATELY and CHANGE the CURRENT SYSTEM OF REGULATIONS from bottom to top bottom, and up and down again before this happens again and again and.....
39 complaints were filed with the Department of Buildings
"It is, perhaps, tragic happenstance that the complaint was made on March 4 and that no problem was found. The person that made the complaint and spoke to the Daily News was a retired contractor and the inspector listed says he wasn't the person that made the inspection." (See today's story at www.gowanuslounge.blogspot.com)
We completely agree with Mr Guskind when he writes that :
"the ENTIRE building inspection and construction regulation system in New York City needs a TOP TO BOTTOM OVERHAUL.."
This has been the precise reason CG CORD has pleaded for months for an IMMEDIATE BUILDING MORATORIUM in CARROLL GARDENS! Further, we now believe that ALL of NYC needs AN IMMEDIATE BUILDING MORATORIUM!!
We agree with Mr. Guskind: "It is a critically dysfunctional governmental system that THREATENS PUBLIC SAFETY and does violence to quality of life on a daily basis. While the horrendous accident on the Upper East Side is a dramatic event with awful consequences, one can find dozens of sites in BROOKLYN every day where the safety of workers and residents is put at risk.
"There are hundreds more that ruin people's quality of life by ignoring regulations with impunity. The situation is nothing short of a VILE SCANDAL. The Department of Buildings needs more inspectors and an entirely new ethic that is RESPONSIVE TO PUBLIC CONCERNS and works to safeguard residents everywhere in the city in all ways whether it's stopping illegal work or greatly curtailing the abused system of self-certification or making honest inspections of sites or making sure that solid fences are erected so that children aren't exposed to two-story deep construction pits.
"Fines need to made large enough to make them sting. Permits need to be revoked for persistent offenses. Developers and contractors need to be part of a system where inspections are real and penalties are severe.
If the city doesn't act to crack down on developers and contractors and to fundamentally overhaul the Department of Buildings..... (this is going to happen AGAIN AND AGAIN.....)
"The issue is not limited to high rise construction safety, even if the problems can have very dramatic consequences. It is everywhere, and it's not going too far to point out that fixing this broken system is A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.
Speak out to our ELECTEDS directly by faxing them, calling them, emailing them, etc etc....many addresses can be found here and elsewhere.
BUT PLEASE DO SPEAK OUT LOUD AND CLEAR! We can not allow this IMMINENT DANGER over OVERDEVELOPMENT and IRRESPONSIBLE development to continue one day longer. The price of this kind of so-called "progress" is simply too HIGH.
NYC is our collective HOME!! after all! We already have had a moratorium resolution introduced at the New York City Council. (See our 1/31/08 "Resolution Day" post). Let us all demand an IMMEDIATE CITY WIDE MORATORIUM from Mayor Bloomberg!!
Let's demand our electeds fix what is very broken immediately!
CORD
