Photo Courtesy of DOB
An estimated 5,000 construction sites across the five boroughs will be scrutinized.
By Michael V. Cusenza
City Department of Buildings Acting Commissioner Thomas Fariello on Monday announced the deployment of more than 90 DOB inspectors throughout the five boroughs to perform safety sweeps of construction sites, and educate workers about the importance of construction site safety.
The enhanced enforcement comes after three construction workers were killed last week in separate incidents.
“The three accidents are still under active investigation, by the department, our partner agencies, and law enforcement,” Fariello said.
The acting commissioner also noted that the 90 construction inspectors, including those from DOB’s newly created Construction Safety Compliance and Construction Safety Enforcement units, the Cranes and Derricks Unit, the Scaffold Safety Unit, and the Special Operations Unit, will be deployed throughout the city to ensure that construction sites are safe for both workers and the public. While performing these sweeps, DOB inspectors will issue enforcement actions if they observe safety violations, and shut down sites if they find serious safety lapses. The effort will hold accountable anyone in the construction industry that cuts corners at the expense of safety, Fariello added.
According to the agency, the Construction Safety Compliance and Construction Safety Enforcement units were created at DOB in August 2018, as part of a larger reorganization of the department’s enforcement branch. The CSC Unit is responsible for periodic inspections of active construction sites, reviewing construction site safety plans, and enforcing site safety training requirements set forth in Local Law 196 of 2017. The CSE Unit is responsible for performing emergency inspections, responding to construction safety-related complaints, performing follow-up inspections for previously issued violations and Stop Work Orders, and conducting regular sweeps of active job sites for construction safety compliance.
According to the agency, Buildings Department construction inspectors will be investigating work sites for compliance with existing construction safety rules, ensuring that scaffold safety precautions are being followed, construction cranes are installed and used according to approved plans, C-hook suspended scaffolds are properly installed, and that appropriate fall protection systems are being utilized.
An estimated 5,000 construction sites will be scrutinized. Work sites that are found to be unsafe for workers could face penalties of up to $25,000 for construction safety violations.
“One death on a construction site in our city is too many,” Fariello said. “We find that most construction accidents could have been prevented with the proper site safety precautions. That is why we are sweeping construction sites across the city, and taking aggressive enforcement actions when we find these precautions are being ignored.”
In an effort to increase safety on construction sites over the last few years, DOB said that it has quadrupled penalties for the most serious safety violations; added more than 250 inspectors since 2015; required safety supervision for all major projects of four stories or greater; is implementing a first-of-its-kind safety training program for the city’s construction workforce; and is calling bad actors out publicly in monthly enforcement bulletins.
According to DOB, the enforcement bulletins “highlight the agency’s actions to sanction and deter bad actors in the construction industry through the enforcement of safety laws and codes of conduct for construction professionals.” On the DOB website, the most recent monthly enforcement bulletin is February 2019.
