New, but Far From Perfect: Construction Defects Follow a Brooklyn Building Boom

Residents at 500 Fourth Avenue, left, which opened in 2010, and 550 Grand Street in Brooklyn, a condo conversion, have complained about construction defects.

It took just three years for balconies to crack and concrete to flake from the facade of one Brooklyn condominium. Another building was prone to flooding, because the storm drainage system was never connected to the sewage system. With buildings rising at a pace not seen in years, some fear that shoddy construction could be making a comeback, too.

As developers feverishly break ground on projects to cash in on soaring property values, lawyers, architects and engineers say they are fielding more calls from residents complaining of structural defects in newly built homes. There is growing concern that some developers are repeating the mistakes of the last housing boom and delivering substandard product. As more residents settle into new buildings, the trickle of calls could soon turn into a flood.

“My phone is ringing already on projects that were just completed,” said Steven D. Sladkus, a Manhattan real estate lawyer who says his firm has dozens of active construction defect cases. “Uh-oh, here we go again.”

When the housing market collapsed in 2007 and coffers ran dry, many developers were left scrambling to complete projects. Some cut corners or abandoned developments, leaving others to finish the work. The result was a spate of poorly built developments followed by a rash of lawsuits from angry buyers. But the number of complaints dwindled when the recession took hold and new construction stalled, leaving only the most seasoned developers to continue to build.

Alana Blahoski started noticing water leaking into her duplex at 550 Grand Street in Brooklyn soon after she arrived in 2011. A wall in her duplex has been stripped to the studs to deal with mold.

Now, in today’s increasingly heady housing market, untested developers are eager to get in the game, and some of those who built problematic buildings in the past are breaking ground again. “It’s like the developers did not learn their lessons,” said Adam Leitman Bailey, a Manhattan real estate lawyer who has noticed an uptick since the start of the year in complaints from residents of newly built buildings reporting problems with elevators, water infiltration and inadequate insulation.

Last year, the city issued construction permits for 20,300 units of housing, according to the Real Estate Board of New York. And the state attorney general’s office received submissions for 263 offering plans for condo conversions and new construction in 2014, up from 184 in 2011. Those numbers will most likely grow in 2015, encouraged by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s push to build more housing.

With land and construction prices high, profit margins are narrower, particularly in midmarket projects. Some builders may take shortcuts, swapping higher-quality materials for less expensive alternatives. Others may hire unqualified subcontractors. While some grievances hinge on cosmetic details like parquet floors where quarter-sawn oak was promised, others are far more serious, with the health and safety of residents — and sometimes pedestrians — in jeopardy.

“It’s one thing that you don’t like the paint job or the carpet in the hallway is shabby,” said Howard L. Zimmerman, an architect whose firm has hired additional staff members in expectation of more problems to come. “But when you don’t have sprinklers and when you don’t have self-closing doors in the fire stairs, those are really life-safety issues that are almost criminal. People could die.” 

Robin Riddle, the condo board president at 500 Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, said residents wanted to move quickly to fix the building’s balconies. Katherine Marks for The New York Times

At 500 Fourth Avenue, a 156-unit condo in Brooklyn that opened in 2010, trouble began in July 2013 when concrete fell from the 12-story building’s facade and balconies onto the streets below. A Department of Buildings inspection found cracks in the balconies, resulting in a partial vacate order — residents living in the 94 units with balconies could no longer step out onto them. The city ordered the building to erect scaffolding and a sidewalk shed to protect passers-by.

Reeling from the news, the fledgling condo board hired an architectural firm that determined that the top layer of concrete on the balconies and ledges had not been laid properly and that the glass railings had been improperly anchored. The price tag for repairs topped $1 million.

“This thing just went up in 2010, are you kidding me?” said Erik Kath, an architect who bought a studio in 2011 with his wife, Kalina, also an architect. The $428,000 apartment, which does not have a balcony, was the first home they had purchased.

Through a series of town-hall-style meetings, residents made their wishes clear: They wanted to return to their balconies. The sidewalk shed, which cannot be removed until the city deems the balconies safe, has darkened a shared resident terrace and several private terraces on the second floor. The board decided to repair the balconies, even though the building had not reached an agreement with its sponsor, the Park Slope Group.

Source: The New York Times