Description
Appears to be no permits. Also they are wrapping the asbestos that is in the building. Asbestos is supposed to be handled by people who are trained specifically trained in the safe handling of asbestos.
also asked...
Q. What is the issue?
A. Working without permits
A. Working without permits
19 Comments
RRC <small class="fwn">(Verified Official)</small>
RRC Assistant Director - Waseem (Verified Official)
D (Registered User)
Kyle (Registered User)
Constituent contacted the RRC to get an update. I referred him to the Dept. of Health and Human Services and also provided the phone number to the State Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development.
He was able to provide additional information regarding the type of work being done, as well. This issue is related to the interior renovations being done in the basement of the building.
Kyle (Registered User)
D (Registered User)
Dept. of Health and Human Services doesn't react to such issues quickly enough (if at all!). Does the city have an enforcement division that could react quickly to similar issues where health and contamination is an immediate concern?
Closed Construction Code Official (Verified Official)
Reopened D (Registered User)
Closed Construction Code Official (Verified Official)
Reopened D (Registered User)
Closed Construction Code Official (Verified Official)
Reopened D (Registered User)
Engineering - Althea (Verified Official)
Hello D,
I am so sorry that you are getting frustrated by the answers you are receiving from our office and the City in general. First let me say that as a community activist myself, in addition to working for the City, it is people like you watching out for all of us that makes this City amazing. I want to get you a much fuller answer that you deserve since this issue is covered by Federal, State, and Municipal law and is hard to understand who does what to the point you feel like you are a pin ball in a pinball machine. It is important that you do not get bounced around just to get nowhere. The RRC can do this legwork for you in the future, but I am going to answer this right now while I have time.
The reason you have not gotten an answer until now is that Construction Code is extremely busy and staffing is not what it would need to be to give the fullest answer in a timely manner for all the requests we receive. This tends to be the case with most offices. Keeping taxes low is a priority so we stay hyper focused on our specific mission to the detriment of being able to see an intra-divisional/ multi agency issue from beginning to end and then give a full explanation. Hopefully others will see this response and the RRC will use it to further explain the situation to other online requests.
My supervisor, Ray Meyer, the Construction Code Official asked me to make sure you got the following.
1) Construction Code is heavily regulated by the State, not the City, and must abide by those laws or our inspectors will lose their licenses and therefore their livelihood. That being said, our inspectors are very aggressive and fair within the confines of the law, because we are a city where we are all living on top of each other and therefore what happens at one address can greatly affect many of those around them.
2) The Office of the Construction Code Official only exists to make sure construction is completed to code, meaning when someone comes in to fill out a permit, they are signing a legal document that among other things, allows us to enter the property during any part of the construction to do an inspection. Depending on the type of working being done, there are different types of inspections and different trades involved (Building, Fire, Plumbing, Electric, & Elevator, in other municipalities there may be Mechanical, our Plumbing inspectors conduct mechanical inspections). We are limited in what we can enforce and how we go about enforcing the code. Repairs and regular maintenance, such as painting, landscaping (even with large bulldozers), construction deliveries, replacing piping in a building (between joints) or unwrapping piping, etc.
3) The structure of the Office is as such: the Construction Code Official has oversight of the entire staff and making sure all laws (Municipal, State, and Federal) are followed concerning construction code, both Uniform and NJ codes. If there is any doubt to how to apply a code, they reach out to the State Construction Code Official, who advises on interpretation. Then there are the Sub Code officials that oversee the inspectors for each trade, Fire Code Official, plumbing code official, etc. After that we have a clerical staff that consist of 9 Technical Assistants, we had to attend a 16 week course and are licensed to issue short permits. The rest of the clerical staff performs regular office duties.
4) We are able to investigate a site where there are claims that work is being done without a permit, but can only do so from the edge of the property. To testify in court that work that requires a permit is being done without permits, the inspector or construction code official MUST be able to say they saw the work being done with their own eyes. We are a country founded on very strong property rights and therefore cannot enter a site without a warrant from a judge unless we are invited in. Pictures and video that is not directly witnessed by the professional will not be accepted by the courts.
5) More than ½ the complaints that work is being done without a permit is not work that requires a permit, but we send inspectors out every time anyways to do our due diligence. That being said, a lot of people might not understand the minor work and repairs that can be done without a permit. The list will be changing soon with upcoming State legislation, but for now you can go to this link http://www.state.nj.us/dca/divisions/codes/codreg/pdf_regs/njac_5_23_2.pdf and see pages 7-11.
Here is the full code for New Jersey for those interested: http://www.state.nj.us/dca/divisions/codes/codreg/ucc.html
It is for this reason we need people to describe the situation as thoroughly as possible, ie. What work they think is being done and where is it being done (basement? Second Floor? If the work is not being witnessed directly, then what is the evidence? A whole dumpster full of wood and drywall?)
6) Asbestos – Since this is a very serious issue, it is handled by the State. Asbestos is harmful over a period of time where the individual is in constant contact with these materials, which is why those doing the work are the ones that are at high risk and therefore those logging a complaint are told to call the NJ Department of Labor (which is not exactly intuitive to a resident raising the issue). You may also visit the web site of the NJ Department of Health http://www.nj.gov/health/ceohs/asbestos/ On their site they specifically state as a part of their mission, “Conducts investigations in response to complaints, tips, or referrals that allege of illegal asbestos abatements”. I have never heard any feed back on how easy or hard it is to get them to come out, so I would love to hear any feed back. These are the only two agencies that have been empowered to take action using trained employees,
I know this is long and I hope it is of some value. If there is anything unclear or if I have missed the point, please let me know and I will try my best to get you the answer you need.
D (Registered User)
Hi Althea,
This is a fantastic write-up. Thank you for taking time and putting some good thought to it.
It's good to know the RRC could be expected to do the legwork to get to the bottom of the construction issues we so often face. What's the best way though to contact them and make sure this legwork you mentioned actually gets done? There were many cases here on SeeClickFix that had a very subpar follow-on... Is there a better way to chase the RRC folks?
I have a few more comments/questions on what you wrote:
1. In #3 you mentioned the Office of the Construction Code Official is responsible for making sure all laws (incl. State and Federal) are followed. That's good to know. I presume this includes enviromental protection laws? In the past, I've been bounced around to the NJ EPA and Federal EPA offices for this - so I shouldn't have been sent around in the first place, and your office could have taken care of it, right?
2. With respect to the NJ law you linked in #5: here's what I got out of it:
* 5:23-2.1(d) mentions express intent of the Regulations to secure public health and safety. This is a very strong statement. Good for us.
* 5:23-2.7(b)6.iv specifically requires permits for anything that affects public health or general safety. Asbestos removal definitely falls in this category. And so does any work involving: renovating, remodeling, repair, or painting (aka RRP) project done in a pre-1978 housing (and obviously, the majority of Jersey City housing stock is pre-1978!).
* Page 12 of the "Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home" booklet by EPA (https://www.epa.gov/lead/protect-your-family-lead-your-home) give specific requirements that ANY contractor doing such an RRP work in a pre-1978 building MUST satisfy. It also lists the work practices such contractors MUST follow. This includes "thorough cleanup" and "proper waste disposal".
* So again, based on your mandate, and on the Federal laws being clear about this (see the two previous bullet points) - you should have no difficulty referring all such cases for enforcement, right?
3. A lot of recent issues we see are about some contractors doing interior demo without any regards to the dust in the air, and with garbage disposal being done right on the public street into open-air dumpsters with possibly-toxic dust blowing all over the street and getting into adjacent houses.
Seems like something your office should be able to enforce? Surely, having video and photo evidence with enough background to identify specific locations should be enough to start an enforcement action? Again, in majority of the cases, the demo work & dumping is being done directly in the public space (sidewalks, streets, air pollution) - so this should be a no-brainer that an enforcement based on community reports with proper video/photo evidence should be sufficient?
4. If such photo/video evidence by residents is not sufficient, then would documenting such cases by calling police patrol and filing a police report - with police officers being witnesses to the alleged violation - be considered sufficient for your office to take action?
5. As can be seen from the other comments on this thread (as well as in other similar threads here on SeeClickFix), there is quite a serious gap between the ability of your office to be a quick-reaction team - which is absolutely needed to police the unprecedented levels of construction being done in JC - and actual reaction times to the complaints filed (it can take days, which is too long).
So any help we residents can give your office to start the enforcement action quickly in cases of violation, we should be encouraged to give. Let's start with your office establishing a proper protocol for the affected residents to follow that can shorten or eliminate the gap between the first time a violation is observed, and your ability to document it for bring up an enforcement action. As I said, police reports may be a good way to go, so that you can have a properly witnessed report to initiate enforcement actions. Clearly, the standard of "the inspector MUST be able to say they saw the work being done with their own eyes", is not sufficient.
So let's figure out what kind of other procedures would make it effective. Please discuss within your office and let us know.
The high level of responsibility being placed in your office to uphold the laws, must be met with the timely and efficient enforcement capabilities.
Let's keep the discussion going, and get the necessary help to you guys at the grass-roots level.
Engineering - Althea (Verified Official)
I also want add that as far as police go, there are monthly community police meetings and you should find out when these meetings are by reaching out to your community relations officer listed on this web page, http://www.njjcpd.org/community-relations
You can raise a lot of the issues at these meeting and get answers from the officers.
Engineering - Althea (Verified Official)
D - I get where you are coming from and how you are reading the legislation, but a lot of your interpretation is piece meal. You can reach out to the Office of the Construction Code Official at the State level and their office can possibly go more into the legal definition and interpretation of the code. Your interpretation is just very broad.
You keep saying that our office needs to be the enforcement agency of environmental issues. This is just not the case. I know you want someone to take charge, but it needs to be the RRC that handles these issues at the inter-divisional and inter agency level. For example, Housing Code Enforcement has capabilities of inspecting existing structures.
You can reach out to the RRC at 201-547-4900 and speak to someone in charge.
"The high level of responsibility being placed in your office to uphold the laws, must be met with the timely and efficient enforcement capabilities." - I assure you we are, but what you are stating above is not at all within our enforcement capabilities. If this is not something you believe, then by all means you should seek to question this at the State level the division that trains us as professionals. We cannot enforce what we are not legally able to enforce.
In addition, while evidence such as video does not hold up in court, by all means, share it with the RRC so they can review the evidence and determine who SHOULD be handling the issues within the City if it is a service the City can legally perform. So far there is no evidence in this case. Definitely get it to them as Diane is handling your case and can get you to where you need to be.
This is all that I can say for my office. We perform a service as it relates to construction... the dust issue, we definitely can enforce on construction sites. We do whenever we receive a complaint. So since each issue is different, we will have to address each issue put on SCF as an individual issue.
At this point I need to ask you, what is the issue specifically here? What is the evidence? What are you seeing take place that leads you to believe they are handling a hazardous material? What location within the dwelling is this taking place?
I know you are saying there is a City wide problem, this might be something you can address with your council person or better yet your state representatives. In this case though, you will need to give us more to go on because the only description is "Appears to be no permits. Also they are wrapping the asbestos that is in the building." Let me know the details, in the meantime, reach back out to the RRC for more answers.
Engineering - Althea (Verified Official)
D (Registered User)
Thank you Althea for this additional info and clarifications. It does seem like quite a bit of bouncing around is a norm while trying to find someone to respond to similar issues WHILE THE ACTIVITY IS ACTUALLY TAKING PLACE. And unfortunately, the result is an eventual lack of enforcement.
One clear thing so far, is that your office can at least take care of the "dust issues". That's a place to start. What would be the best way to have it done in a timely manner (preferably same day as the activity in question is happening)?
In my past experience with your office, I was told to: 1) leave voicemail messages for the inspectors (done, on multiple occasions: no one ever returned my calls); 2) try calling in early in the morning to try and catch actual inspectors instead of leaving messages (done: no one ever picked up the phone, and I always got the voicemail instead).
So it seems the communication lines and the level of responsiveness on the phone is just not up to snuff. Do you have a suggestion on what's the best way to reach your office for timely enforcement (PREFERABLY ON THE DAY) of any dust issues when actually observed?
Closed Construction Code Official (Verified Official)