Landlords Rarely Punished For Lead Dust Violations: Study

EAST VILLAGE, NY — The city failed to collect more than 99 percent of $2 million in fines levied against landlords who violated New York's lead dust laws over the past 15 years, according to a new study issued Tuesday.

New York officials have collected just $10,190 of the $1,976,870 in Health Department fines issued against city landlords found to have violated lead laws since 2014, advocates said on the steps of City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

"This city has to do better than this," said Cooper Square Committee organizer Brandon Kielbasa. "This is unacceptable."

The groups analysis examined enforcement of Local Law 1, first implemented in 2004, which was designed to put an end to lead poisoning in city homes.

Health Department officials have since slapped landlords with 2,828 violations and, while 2,212 resulted in penalties, only 12 have been paid, according to the groups' analysis of Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings records.

"We have no idea how the city can be saying that they're doing everything to stop lead contamination when they're not doing something as simple as issue basic fines," Kielbasa said.

"The penalties they issue now are incredibly small, never issued often enough, and really get completely minimized or not collected at all through the collection process."

For tenants in older buildings filled with lead-based paint, gut renovations and construction on the inside are known to litter buildings with lead-laden dust, often higher than federal standards, and forcing some to go on rent strike.

One East 12th Street resident, Holly Slayton, was told by her doctor to wear a mask inside her own home, along with her daughter, when construction dust seeped through her floorboards and dust was found with four times the federal threshold for lead about two years ago.

"It has made life a living hell for me and my child," said Slayton, one of the tenants living in a building formerly owned by notorious landlord Raphael Toledano, who foreclosed on many East Village properties.

"We need super fines and penalties," she said. "They're dropping the ball."

Meanwhile, the new study found street vendors were slapped with 21 times as many fines as landlords who violate lead safety standards have since 2004.

Vendors also paid the fines at a much higher rate than landlords, 35 percent versus less than one percent. Overall, vendors paid more than $5 million in fines for those adjudicated through the administrative trials and hearings office.

"Ultimately, the data pose the question of whether the City cares more about ensuring food carts are placed correctly on the sidewalk than ensuring that landlords won't continue to poison their tenants with lead dust," the study said.

For instance, the health department collected $1.6 million in fines from vendors for placing a cart in a bus stop, too close to a driveway, on a subway or crosswalk compared to the $10,090 for maintaining safety standards regarding lead-based paint since 2004. Fines for a vendor's cart touching or leaning against a building totaled nearly $91,000.

"It's painfully clear that the city is not doing its part to enforce (the laws)," said Council Member Carlina Rivera, who represents the East Village where Slayton lives.

City Hall disputed the results.

"We vigorously dispute the results of this report, which seems based on incomplete information," mayoral spokesperson Will Baskin-Gerwitz said.

"The City is now collecting nine times as much in these fines as it was six years ago, and enhancing its legal efforts through tenant protection lawsuits that will allow it to collect even more from faulty landlords," Baskin-Gerwitz said.

He pointed to more than $194,000 in fines collected by the Law Department since 2013 for lead violations, about 54 percent of fines issued. The fines collected by the Law Department are from landlords who didn't pay within 60 days after the OATH adjudication process.

Even the study authors acknowledge a lack of data, noting they did not have information on what violations or fines were issued before any violations were heard through the OATH adjudication process.

One of the recommendations for the Health Department included making all lead enforcement actions publicly available online, such as lead reports and commissioner's orders.

Advocates rallied a day before a City Council oversight hearing on stricter lead laws passed earlier this year, chanting as the season's first flurries fell, "make the landlords do what's right, give the laws a tougher bite!"