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Detailed explanation of Project ESPO's three main components
4:02:12
ยท
6 min
Deputy Commissioner Yigal Shamash provides a comprehensive breakdown of Project ESPO's three main components: proactive inspections, heightened enforcement, and staying vigilant.
- Proactive inspections: 60 inspections completed, focusing on sensitive buildings near development sites
- Heightened enforcement: 467 locations inspected, targeting bad actors and their associates
- Staying vigilant: 234 inspections performed, focusing on Class 1 violation reinspections and follow-ups on corrective actions
- Total of 761 inspections resulting in 331 violations issued
- Use of GIS mapping and analytics to identify sensitive buildings and track bad actors
- Collaboration with DOB attorneys to pursue disciplinary actions against problematic professionals and owners
Yigal Shamash
4:02:12
I'll break it down into the three different groups that we have it in.
4:02:16
First and foremost, it was a herculean effort to get these three initiatives going.
4:02:24
We have three great assistant commissioners.
4:02:27
Olga Schuta, who is leading up proactive inspections.
4:02:31
Ronaldo Hilton who is leading up staying vigilant.
4:02:35
And then Sal Augustino who's heading up heightened enforcement.
4:02:39
I will start with proactive inspections.
4:02:42
We have performed 60 inspections to date.
4:02:47
In terms of heightened enforcement, we have inspected four sixty seven locations that we believe bad actors are doing work at.
4:02:58
And then staying vigilant, we have done two thirty four inspections for a total of seven sixty one inspections.
4:03:06
On those seven sixty one inspections we have issued three thirty one violations.
4:03:13
As the Commissioner said, we are not fully staffed.
4:03:17
From supervisor up, we are pretty close to being fully staffed, but the inspectorial group is what we are currently actively recruiting for and bringing in.
4:03:32
And what we're doing is we're taking mature senior inspectors from other units.
4:03:41
You know, not trying to strip those units dry entirely, but get a mix of new people and senior inspectors into the units to perform the work.
4:03:53
So trying to blend in the experience within the units.
4:03:58
In terms of proactive inspections, Olga's team has a group of inspectors.
4:04:05
They have a group of plan examiners.
4:04:07
And what they're charged with doing is taking a look at where folks are doing development, whether that's a new building or an alteration with an enlargement, and seeing if there's a sensitive building next door.
4:04:21
If that sensitive building is landmarks or has numerous violations, or maybe it's the type of building or the age of the building.
4:04:31
And what they're looking for and we're using a GIS map to collate all of this information together.
4:04:38
And our analytics team has put this map together and it's really amazing.
4:04:44
We'd love to show it to you if you want to come by and take a look at the maps.
4:04:49
It's really amazing so we can catalog what we think are sensitive buildings and then see what work is happening next door, take a look at those plans on a proactive basis, and then also do inspections.
4:05:02
So that's what Olga's team is heading up.
4:05:05
The heightened enforcement against bad actors.
4:05:08
And I think this is really the key to your local law is for example, we can take a look at 1950 Billingsley, right?
4:05:20
We did a sweep of the other buildings that that owner had.
4:05:26
And normally that would be the extent of what we would do.
4:05:31
We would take a look at the other buildings and we would stop there.
4:05:34
So if you can imagine that to be a spider web with the owner of 1950 Billingsley in the center and all the addresses of other buildings.
4:05:45
That's one spiderweb.
4:05:46
But this unit takes it to the next level.
4:05:50
We're not only looking at the other buildings he has, but who are the professionals that he's using?
4:05:58
Who are the licensees that he's using?
4:06:01
Who are the contractors, the permit holders that he's using?
4:06:06
And then creating a spider web using those folks as the center of the spider web and not just the building owner.
4:06:15
And taking a look at what those folks are doing.
4:06:19
Now if we take a look at four or five of those professionals and maybe one or two of those have already been disciplined by us, so we focus on that group.
4:06:28
And same with the licensees and same with the permit holders.
4:06:32
So we're taking it to the next level with that group.
4:06:35
And it's really focusing on those specific individuals.
4:06:42
And we can take a look at a large number of lists, whether that's the bad owners list that gets published every year, whether that's a list of professionals that we have discipline, whether that's a list of licensees that we're looking at that we've disciplined in the past.
4:07:00
Or maybe we find somebody new we pass that along to our fabulous attorneys at the department.
4:07:07
So part of the proactive enforcement was a whole bunch of lines for attorneys as well.
4:07:13
So we pass along those cases.
4:07:15
And that's what makes this unit different than just a regular inspectorial unit.
4:07:21
They have investigators that go along with it to put the cases together for our attorneys, work with our attorneys, and really discipline these professionals.
4:07:29
What we've learned from longstanding sheds is violations are not enough.
4:07:33
You really need to wake up the owners.
4:07:35
You need to wake up the professionals and really take a hard look at them.
4:07:39
And the best way by doing that is getting our attorneys after them.
4:07:43
And last but not least, staying vigilant is two pronged.
4:07:47
We're looking at bringing back our class one violation reinspections but being cognizant of the homeowner relief program and making sure that we are still abiding by that homeowner relief program.
4:08:01
In that program we issue requests for corrective actions and homeowners in one and two family dwellings have sixty days to correct those violating conditions.
4:08:13
As part of staying vigilant, we're also following up on those requests for corrective actions.
4:08:18
So that two pronged effort with regards to staying vigilant.