“Prior to January 2022, only projects involving Plan Examination were being asked to get expedited from the office,” he wrote in May 2022 to his colleagues in the Bureau of Fire Prevention. At one point, Deputy Chief Brian Cordasco noted that under Adams, the types of inspections City Hall wanted expedited had grown. The internal emails show top fire officials becoming increasingly concerned about favoritism once Adams took office. In the lawsuit, Joseph Jardin, the former head of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, which handles fire alarm system inspections, said the list - which began under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and continued under Mayor Adams - came to favor “friends” of City Hall. ‘The List Is Getting Longer’Īllegations that the mayor’s office was placing connected players on the list for expedited FDNY inspections first surfaced in a lawsuit filed by several FDNY chiefs alleging they were demoted or pushed out by Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh for complaining about the list and other issues. PS 112 administrators and parents did not respond to THE CITY’s request for comment Saturday. “As the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Operations have said, this administration has a systematic effort to speed up construction and permitting called ‘Get Stuff Built.’ And as they’ve said, FDNY is doing fire alarm inspections 33% faster this year, and DOB is completing construction, plumbing, and electrical inspections each within 4 days,” said Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor in response to questions from THE CITY.įire Department officials declined to discuss the cancellation of PS 112’s inspection or any of the others that were canceled. Manhattan buildings that lost their spot in line included a multi-unit rental building on Greenwich Street in the West Village, a 10-story mixed-use building on Hudson Street in Soho, and a building at E. in Fort Greene houses several schools and a daycare, Dec. Other out-of-luck applicants included three small multi-family row house conversions in Sunset Park and the Brooklyn Independent Middle School in Fort Greene, a private school with sliding tuition scale to accommodate lower-income families. ![]() In the 20220-23 school year 70% of the students were eligible for free or reduced fair lunches, one indicator of poverty.īuilding department records indicate that the fire alarm system at PS 112’s new annex was ultimately inspected by the Fire Department and approved by DOB in February 2023, but only after the system’s drawings were altered “for compliance with FDNY notice of defect” related to “carbon monoxide and heat detection.” PS 112 serves a highly diverse student body of more than 700 that is 38% Hispanic, 34% Asian and 27% white. The PS 112 Lefferts Park Elementary School in Dyker Heights was undergoing construction, Dec. The department had been set to check the fire alarm system at a newly built annex for the school, which is in a district with severe overcrowding problems. In order to accommodate City Hall’s requests to expedite Hudson Yards, the FDNY had to cancel the scheduled April 12 inspection for PS 112 Lefferts Park Elementary School in Dyker Heights, an email obtained by THE CITY show. ![]() ![]() Since the existence of the federal probe of his fundraising surfaced in public last month, Mayor Adams has repeatedly insisted no such list existed and that all applicants seeking inspections - big or small - were treated the same.īut the emails make clear that in the spring of 2022, the department canceled already scheduled inspections at 12 sites that weren’t on the VIP list in order to move up the inspection of 50 Hudson Yards, a “top priority of City Hall.” All but three of the canceled sites were in Brooklyn. ![]() The email is one of about two dozen obtained by THE CITY in which FDNY top brass struggle to address the pressure from City Hall to move up inspections for favored developers and businesses. High-End Sushi Joint Linked to Big Eric Adams Donor Got Fast-Tracked for FDNY Clearance.Order to Prioritize FDNY Inspection for Hudson Yards Tower Came from Mayor’s Office.
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