Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri kicked off the Department’s 9th annual Construction Safety Week with the 2013 Build Safe/Live Safe Conference at the New York Marriott Downtown at the weekend.
More than 400 construction professionals and government regulators attended the daylong conference where the Department announced the results of Operation: Low Rise, a two-month long inspection sweep of low-rise construction sites throughout the City.
Following detailed inspections at 920 sites, inspectors issued full and partial Stop Work Orders at 12% of the locations – where construction operations were stopped due to unsafe conditions. In total, nearly 900 safety violations were issued, including a minimum of $954,450 in penalties.
As a part of the multi-lingual safety campaign, Experience Is Not Enough, inspectors are also distributing more than 10,000 educational flyers at hundreds of low-rise sites, encouraging workers to take proper precautions on the job site.
In 2012, construction-related fatalities increased from five to eight, and seven of these deaths occurred on low-rise sites, buildings under construction that will be nine stories and less.
Commissioner LiMandri delivered the keynote address at the safety summit, focusing on how the Department’s members have worked to raise the industry safety standards while improving the approval process so more construction projects can break ground.
“Experience alone does not make any worker invincible, and this conference is a great way to share ideas about the most common accidents and how we can prevent them from reoccurring.” said Commissioner LiMandri.
“As development increases across the City, so must our focus on construction safety.”
As a part of Operation: Low Rise, inspectors issued a total of 879 violations. Common violations issued included working without permit; Failure to safeguard; Guardrails missing/inadequate; Handrails missing/inadequate; Work does not conform to plans; Failure to provide protection for adjoining buildings; and Fire extinguisher missing.
