After spate of NYC building collapses, a call to restore funding for inspectors

New York City’s building department is having a moment, and Mayor Eric Adams is now facing a call to restore the budget cuts he’s planning for the agency.

“Across the city you’re seeing buildings collapse, we had a retaining wall that collapsed a couple days ago last week, so there’s just a lot of things that are affecting our infrastructure and I worry about DOB’s capacity to do this work,” Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson said in an interview.

The criticism comes after several recent partial building collapses including two in the Bronx, one last month and another this week, and another in Little Italy on Wednesday where the city found illegal construction that brought down an entire wall.

“All the people here were scared, it was scary,” said Marjorie Carrillo, 51, who works across the street from the partially collapsed, four-story building at 188 Grand St. at the intersection of Mulberry St. and Grand St.

Mayor Adams announced across-the-board cuts of 5% for all city agencies late last year. According to the latest data available, the buildings department had an actual personnel headcount of just over 1,500 for 2023, down from more than 1,700 in 2020. The funding cuts are expected to lead to even further reductions in staff. It currently has 300 fewer employees than are currently planned for by the department.

A spokesperson for the building department referred questions about the budget to the mayor’s office which did not immediately respond to messages.

In recent days, Adams has reversed cuts for several city agencies and programs, including the parks department and the department of education’s Summer Rising program.

According to the Department of Buildings, owners of the building in Little Italy were doing illegal construction that led to the collapse. The city ordered the building’s demolition which has closed iconic Mulberry St. between Grand St. and Broome St. where the businesses rely on foot traffic.