New York has gone 14 years without a single enforcement action on private lead inspection law
New York City’s regulators have not taken a single enforcement action against any landlord for failing to conduct annual lead inspections in the 14 years since the city passed an ambitious lead poisoning prevention law in 2004, according to a new report on children’s lead poisoning by a coalition of environmental and housing groups.
Local Law 1 aimed to end lead poisoning in New York City by 2010, but more than 61,000 children under six have had elevated blood lead levels since 2010, according to the report, which contains multiple specific examples of New York failing to take enforcement action against negligent landlords. According to the most recent Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) data, 97 percent of the children found to be lead poisoned since the beginning of 2010 resided in private dwellings.
The groups examined data on violations and enforcement actions from the DOHMH and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which shows that HPD is failing to enforce the primary prevention measures of Local Law 1, whose goal was to make landlords responsible for proactively finding and abating lead paint hazards before children became lead poisoned, and to eventually remove all lead paint hazards from private rental dwellings throughout the city.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.