City Strengthens Building Review

As a result of process errors and poor compliance of the building contractor, PV has strengthened the building review process.

Though I really appreciate the Star reporter asking for my comments, I was slightly misquoted as saying,

“I think the initial look at what went wrong is excellent for now,” Ward 3 council member Andrew Wang said. “But there’s probably more that can be done.”

Now anyone who has heard me speak in the council chambers (or anywhere for that matter) knows that I am no William Jennings Bryan but that is a sloppy sentence even for me.

More importantly, an initial "look" is most certainly NOT enough. I do think that city staff has made a good effort to institute significant changes towards eliminating the errors that occured on 71st Street but it was not merely examiniation of the processes. It was the addition of the site inspection with a set of plans that includes the actual measurement of the foundation distance from all set back lines and a comparison of those measurements to the approved plan.

I was accurately quoted as saying that I would like to pursue monetary fines for builders who materially ignore the permitting process.