FROM THE HPD WEBSITE Improving the quality of housing in New York City ENFORCEMENT SERVICES ONE TEAM... ONE GOAL MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, Mayor RAFAEL E. CESTERO, Commissioner nyc.gov/hpd Complaints? Call 311 • nyc.gov/hpd The City of New York DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT Offi ce of Enforcement and Neighborhood Services MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, Mayor RAFAEL E. CESTERO, Commissioner Division of Code Enforcement Offi ce Locations & Contact Numbers Bronx: 1932 Arthur Avenue (3rd Floor) Bronx, NY 10457 (718) 579-6790 Brooklyn: 701 Euclid Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11208 (718) 827-1942 210 Joralemon Street (Room # 806) Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 802-3662 Manhattan: 94 Old Broadway (7th Floor) New York, NY 10027 (212) 234-2541 Queens: 120-55 Queens Boulevard (1st Fl.) Kew Gardens, NY 11424 (718) 286-0800, (718) 286-0808, (718) 286-0809 Staten Island: Borough Hall (2nd Floor) St. George, NY 10301 (718) 816-2340 Tenant Information Message Service: (212) 863-8307 1 The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the leading municipal developer of affordable housing in the nation. In February 2006, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his new housing agenda, The New Housing Marketplace: Creating Housing for the Next Generation, the largest investment in the City’s housing stock in 20 years that continues the City’s commitment to housing preservation and community development activities. It is a $7.5 billion plan to create and preserve more than 165,000 homes and apartments in neighborhoods by 2013. HPD protects existing housing stock and expands housing options for New Yorkers as it strives to improve the availability, affordability, and quality of housing in New York City. As part of our efforts to preserve affordable housing, HPD is responsible for ensuring that building owners comply with the City’s Housing Maintenance Code and the New York State Multiple Dwelling Law. These are the regulations that provide the minimum housing standards for residential buildings in New York City. This publication introduces both tenants and owners to how Enforcement Services preserves and protects housing in New York City. Tenants may come into contact with HPD’s Enforcement Services, which includes the Division of Code Enforcement and Division of Maintenance, when they contact us about conditions in their building. Building owners may come into contact with HPD’s Enforcement Services for assistance with preserving, maintaining, or improving their buildings. Introduction 12 The law requires that owners of all multiple dwellings [three or more units] fi le an annual Multiple Dwelling Registration form with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Owners of private one- and twofamily homes are only required to register when neither the owner nor any family member occupies the dwelling. Filing a an annual Multiple Dwelling Registration form may provide owners with notice and an opportunity to correct housing maintenance complaints and emergencies before HPD issues violations and performs emergency repairs. The Registration Assistance Unit helps owners who have questions or need guidance with the registration process. Staff members are available to aid owners, Monday to Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Owners who need assistance may come in person, call 212-863-7000 for help, or visit the HPD web site at www.nyc.gov/hpd. The HPD website now contains an Online Registration Assistance feature that will allow an owner to fi ll out their property registration statement online. Registration Assistance Unit Staff from the Registration Assistance Unit. 11 Violation That May Trigger Emergency Repairs is Identified HPD’s Emergency Repair Program may repair the condition and bill the building owner Emergency Repair Order generated Emergency Service Bureau owner callback Owner Agrees to Repair? Tenant callback after repair period Repaired? Emergency Repair Closed Owner Contests Bill? Research and Reconciliation Unit reviews Decision? NO Approves Contestation Rejects Contestation YES YES NO NO YES Bill Reduced Bill Stands Owner Pays Enforcement Services Flowchart Part 2 Housing Maintenance Complaint Condition Warrants a Violation? Notice of Violation sent to last validly registered owner Condition Immediately Hazardous? Violation Properly Corrected and Certified? A uniformed Code Enforcement Inspector may inspect your apartment Tenants may initiate legal action against the landlord in Housing Court HPD’s Emergency Repair Program may repair the condition and bill the building owner NO NO YES NO Complaint Closed YES Property Owners/ Managing Agents must annually register their buildings with HPD. YES Violation Closed 2 Enforcement Services Flowchart Part 1 Housing Inspectors Housing Inspectors are a vital link to the public. Our more than 400 uniformed Housing Inspectors play a key role in improving the quality of housing in New York City. They respond to many complaints fi led with the City’s Citizen Service Center at 311. No matter why they are called, Housing Inspectors will inspect for the following six conditions during all apartment inspections: • Peeling paint [if a child under age six resides in the apartment] • Illegal double-cylinder locks that require a key for exit at apartment entrance doors • Illegal bars or gates at any egress window • Defective or missing window guards [if a child under age eleven resides in the apartment] • Defective or missing smoke alarms • Defective or missing carbon monoxide alarms Housing Inspectors can communicate in 150 languages. Many Housing Inspectors are bilingual and speak languages that include Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Creole, French, Hebrew, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Russian and Spanish. For those Housing Inspectors who do not speak your language, HPD has a telephone service that links them to interpreters who will translate any one of over 150 languages. Housing Inspector speaking with tenants about apartment conditions. 3 10 Research and Reconciliation Unit Emergency Repair charges incurred by HPD when repairing violations are billed to the building owner. Charges that are not paid become a tax lien against the property. The administrative staff of the Research and Reconciliation Unit review and make determinations of protested emergency repair charges. Protests must be in writing. The protest letter (with all supporting documents) should be forwarded to the HPD ERP Research and Reconciliation Unit,100 Gold Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10038. The Research and Reconciliation Unit can also be reached at 212-863-6020. Protest determinations made by HPD’s Research and Reconciliation Unit are put in writing and mailed to the owner. A lead abatement technician cleans up a contaminated site using a special wet vacuum. 9 Emergency Repair Program 4 Housing Inspectors In order to access this telephone service and obtain a translator, a Housing Inspector may ask to use your telephone. There will be no charge for this phone call. Housing Inspectors provide service to the public 24/7 throughout the five boroughs. Our Inspectors’ shifts provide coverage 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. In fact, most Housing Inspectors work evenings and weekends. There is a Code Enforcement offi ce in each borough. In order to better serve the public, a Public Interviewer, who is a Housing Inspector, is assigned to each Code Enforcement Borough Offi ce. The Public Interviewer is responsible for providing assistance to the public and answering questions concerning specifi c Code Enforcement actions or issues. We depend on your cooperation to do our work. If you have reported what you believe to be an unsafe condition in your apartment, it is very important that you provide access to Housing Inspectors, so that necessary inspections can be performed. Housing Inspectors may write violations for conditions or problems that were not noted in the original complaint. Correcting Violations Housing Inspectors issue three classes of Violations. Class A Violations are considered non-hazardous, and owners have 90 days to correct the condition. Class B Violations are hazardous, and owners have 30 days to make necessary corrections and repairs. Class C Violations are immediately hazardous, and owners have 24 hours to correct the violations. One exception to the 24-hour time limit is lead-based paint hazard violations, for which owners have 21 days to correct. Owners who receive notices of violations should pay attention to correction and certifi cation dates listed. If you have received a notice of violation, you may contact your borough Code Enforcement offi ce for more detailed information on correcting and certifying violations. The Emergency Repair Program (ERP) may perform emergency repairs to correct a Class C immediately hazardous violation that is not corrected by the owner. Prior to the actual performance of an emergency repair, technical staff from the Division of Maintenance or a private contractor hired by HPD will inspect the violation and create a “scope of work.” The scope of work details all of the work that must be performed in order to address the immediately hazardous condition. After the scope of work is created, the Division of Maintenance will dispatch technical staff or hire a private contractor to perform the emergency repair. Some repairs involve environmental hazards like lead and asbestos. The Division of Maintenance’s Bureau of Environmental Hazards is comprised of staff that is specially trained to remove and test environmental hazards. In order for repairs to be performed in a timely fashion, it is vital that tenants provide access to technical staff and contractors. The law requires tenants to provide landlords with access to make repairs, provided that such access is at a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner. An abatement technician with appropriate protective gear removes paint from a wall. 8 Emergency Services Bureau If a Housing Inspector issues class C immediately hazardous violations that call for emergency repair, the Emergency Services Bureau will attempt to contact the building owner and occupants. This process is an effective tool in getting serious violations corrected swiftly. The Emergency Services Bureau attempts to call owners after these “emergency repair generating” class C violations are issued and provides notice of the violations and impending emergency repair. The Emergency Services Bureau reaches out to the last validly registered owner. Owners who fi le an annual up-to-date Multiple Dwelling Registration form may be notifi ed of class C emergency repair generating violations before emergency repairs are performed by HPD. This is another reason why fi ling an annual Multiple Dwelling Registration Form with HPD is important and benefi cial to owners. The Emergency Services Bureau also attempts to call the complainant or tenant affected by the immediately hazardous condition to see if the condition has been corrected. An emergency repair will be cancelled only if the complainant or tenant verifi es that the condition has been corrected. Emergency Services Bureau staff member notifying an owner of an “emergency repair generating” class C violation. 5 Special Services: Lead, Fire, Emergencies & Support HPD’s Division of Code Enforcement has Specialized Inspection Units for matters that require expert attention and skill. These include: The Lead-Based Paint Inspection Program The Housing Inspectors in this program inspect for lead-based paint hazards in apartments where children under the age of six live. The Inspectors are equipped with x-ray fl uorescence [XRF] machines that detect the presence of lead in paint. The Alternative Enforcement Program The Alternative Enforcement Program (“AEP”) is an additional enforcement mechanism that HPD utilizes to enforce the correction of housing maintenance conditions in the most distressed multiple dwellings. The AEP ensures that violations and conditions that caused the violations are corrected. The AEP team is comprised of housing inspectors, construction project managers, community coordinators and support staff that perform inspections, monitor construction work and provide tenants with information and updates pertaining to the dwelling’s status in the AEP. Housing Inspectors use an x-ray fl uorescence analyzer to detect lead in the paint on a wall. 7 Call Back Units: Responding to Owners and Tenants Owners who respond quickly to occupant complaints are vital to maintaining the quality of housing in New York City. Our Owner Call Back Unit staff contacts owners and notifi es them when an emergency complaint is fi led at 311, the City’s Citizen Service Center. Our goal is to obtain rapid owner response through early notifi cation. Shortly after being advised of an emergency complaint, the Owner Call Back Unit reaches out to owners by contacting them with the phone number they supply on the Multiple Dwelling Registration form for a given building. The Owner Call Back Unit contacts the last validly registered owner. Owners that fi le an annual up-to-date Multiple Dwelling Registration form may be notifi ed of housing maintenance complaints soon after the complaint is reported and before an inspection is performed by HPD. This is one reason why fi ling an annual Multiple Dwelling Registration with HPD is important and benefi cial to owners. The Tenant Call Back Unit calls the complainant or tenant to determine if the conditions complained of have been corrected. If the complainant or tenant cannot be reached, or if he or she claims that the condition still exists, a Housing Inspector may be dispatched to the location to undertake an inspection. Owners are not advised when or if an inspection will be performed. If the complainant or tenant states that the conditions referred to in the complaint have been corrected, the complaint is closed. 6 Special Services: Lead, Fire, Emergencies & Support Special Enforcement Unit The Housing Inspectors in the Special Enforcement Unit respond to fi res and perform inspections to determine whether affected apartments are habitable. Working with real property managers, the Unit monitors repair work and maintains contact with occupants and owners until the apartments are fi t for habitation. Emergency Response Unit Housing Inspectors assigned to this Unit respond to emergencies such as buildings that collapse. This unit provides coverage 24 hours a day and is able to perform late night and early morning inspections when needed. City-Wide Inspection Unit This Unit conducts re-inspections at Single Room Occupancy buildings (SROs), responds to tenant complaints and supports other Bureaus and Divisions of HPD as well as other city agencies, including the Department of Homeless Services and the Human Resources Administration. Special Enforcement Unit Staff assisting a tenant returning to a vacated apartment that had been restored to habitability.