North Hempstead Sets Process for Unsafe Buildings

The board passed an amendment on June 14 to a local law that outlines what happens with unsafe properties.

The amendment says that owners of an unsafe building have to register those buildings with the Town's buildings department within 10 days, the necessary police and fire units have to be notified of the building’s condition and the owner also has five days from registering the property with the Town to submit a plan to bring it back to code.

After these plans have been submitted to revitalize the building, the owner has 30 days to file applications for the necessary permits and 90 days after the permits are issued to complete the needed work. 

If the owner fails to comply with notices and other issues related to their building, there is the potential for revocation of the building and for it to be demolished.

Councilman Fred Pollack called this legislation “landmark” because it puts a timetable in place so that owners will take the “appropriate steps” to get the property into compliance. 

Supervisor Jon Kaiman explained that determining whether a building is unsafe or not is based on appearance and whether the building is occupied or not.

“This allows us to look at a structure and create a presumption that once a certain period of time elapses, and it's not a very long period, assume that it's unsafe and then they have to come back and prove that it's safe,” Kaiman said.