Dive Brief:
- As part of a package of bills, the New York City Council on May 23 voted on legislation to improve the safety and building integrity of parking garages across the city.
- The bill, Introduction 135, would mandate that the city’s Department of Buildings conduct a study to evaluate the structural integrity of parking garages by assessing various factors affecting their load bearing capacity. These include their size, age, materials and structural design. Once the study is completed, the DOB is required to report recommendations based on their findings to the mayor and city council speaker within six months of the bill’s effective date, and make the report publicly available within a year.
- The legislation, which the city council has forwarded to Mayor Eric Adams, would take effect immediately, if approved. The bill package would also double the standard civil penalties for certain DOB-enforced parking structure violations and require the DOB to increase its frequency of parking garage inspections, the city council said in a news release last week.
Dive Insight:
The legislation is a response to the collapse of a parking garage in lower Manhattan last April — an incident that killed the garage manager and injured five others, per the city council’s news release. At the time, the structure had already been slammed with various open violations for loose, defective and cracked concrete throughout the building structure, the city council said. The parking garage also “held more cars than its intended load capacity,” Pierina Ana Sanchez, city council member and chairperson of the Committee on Housing and Buildings, said in a hearing last month.
Following the incident, the DOB inspected hundreds of garages across the city and issued multiple full and partial vacate orders, the city council said in the release, noting that the package of bills “aims to address gaps in the safety of parking garages to prevent any future tragedies.”
Introduction 135-A, one of the bills sponsored by New York City Council Majority Whip Selvena Brooks-Powers, requires the DOB to conduct the load bearing capacity study for parking garages.
“By requiring a load bearing capacity study for parking garages, our city will better identify structural issues before disaster strikes,” Brooks-Powers, who represents the 31st City Council District and chairs the city council’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said in a statement. Brooks-Powers noted that this bill is “a proactive measure to bolster our infrastructure to make it safe, reliable, and capable of withstanding everyday use” and reflects a commitment to “rigorous inspections and oversight” that will inspire more public confidence in the city’s facilities.
Another bill, Introduction 170-A, would double the standard civil penalties for certain DOB-enforced violations issued to owners of parking structures to improve the safety of parking garages and compliance with regulatory requirements.
New York City Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías, who sponsored this bill, noted that the fines vary based on the class and description of the violation. “This is to create uniformity around parking structure violations and ensure the fees New York City have in place are a strong deterrent from mismanagement,” Farías said in a statement.
Minimum civil penalties for parking structure violations, as defined in section 28-323.2 of the administrative code of the city of New York, range from $1,600 to $20,000, according to a document outlining the bill. Section 28-323.2 mandates an on-site inspection and evaluation of a parking structure by an approved agency for evidence of deterioration of any structural element or building component, or evidence indicating damage, decay, faulty construction, unstable foundation or any other unsafe structural conditions that can result in a partial or complete collapse of the structure.
For example, an immediately hazardous violation of section 28-211.1 would result in penalties as high as $20,000, according to the document outlining Introduction 170-A. Under section 28-211.1, if an inspection finds the same violation as reported six months ago, it is presumed that the violation was never corrected, unless proven otherwise, according to American Legal Publishing.
Introduction 231, sponsored by city council member Crystal Hudson, increases the frequency of parking structure inspections to every four years, compared with every six years required by Local Law 126 of 2021. Introduction 231 says condition assessments of parking structures are required every four years, once the current six-year inspection cycle ends on Jan. 1, 2028. Follow-up assessments are also required within two years of a parking structure being deemed as safe with repair or monitoring, the bill says.
An additional bill in the package is Introduction 176, which involves the creation of a boilerplate annual checklist for parking garage inspections prior to initial annual condition inspections.
Clarification: We have updated the story to clarify that the council passed the legislation.
