A team of 38 building inspectors in New York City has been conducting surprise inspections at job sites for major construction projects, netting $15 million in fines since September 2018, according to www.constructiondive.com.
Inspectors have completed 20,166 surprise inspections of 10,256 city construction sites—about 25% of all active sites during that time. They issued the majority of 11,484 violations in 2019 after the new group of inspectors was fully operating.
During visits to major construction sites—new construction or renovations projects of four stories or higher—the inspectors also issued 2,523 stop-work orders for safety supervision violations and incidents of dangerous working conditions. Although some developers and owners complained the inspections can be disruptive and target minor violations, the city said the number of accidents during the first nine months of 2019 fell by 26% compared with the same period last year.
To add a focus on safety training, the New York City Department of Buildings recently announced its inspectors started visiting 6,000 city construction sites in early November to educate workers regarding the importance of safety before the Dec. 1 training deadline.
Workers at job sites requiring a construction superintendent, site safety coordinator or site safety manager had to have 30 hours of safety training by Dec. 1 and a total of 40 hours by September 2020. Supervisors had to have 62 hours of training by Dec. 1.
