NEW YORK — Imagine being evicted from your home with only minutes to pack up your belongings. That’s what happened to a Brooklyn family after city inspectors said they found safety violations at a nearby construction site.
The three-generation family has been displaced for more than a week and they fear what will happen next.
Brooklyn family evacuated after accident at nearby construction site
Homeowner Yvonne Belardo says firefighters told her to evacuate her three-story Bushwick home without warning on Sept. 5. City inspectors had discovered the building next door was unstable and would have to be demolished.
“It’s like I don’t matter. No one talks to me, tells me what my rights are,” Belardo said.
Mahsa Saeidi, an investigative reporter for CBS News New York, saw the neighboring property manager, city officials and a demolition company on the scene.
Belardo says she wants to make sure her home is protected if her neighbor’s house is damaged.
“I understand that there’s nothing that can be done to save that house, so why don’t you do everything you can to make sure that you save my house, because I had nothing to do with the accident,” she said.
The accident happened at a construction site two doors down. According to the Department of Buildings, the contractor had dug too deep, “in violation of approved documents,” causing catastrophic damage to the neighbor’s home. The Department of Buildings has halted work at the site.
Although the neighbors had done nothing wrong, it was now their responsibility to demolish their own building.
But what about Belardo, the neighbor?
“This house is my inheritance”
Belardo says she feels forgotten as she stands next to a tree her parents planted in the 1960s.
“This house is my legacy to leave to my family,” she said. “My children were born here. My grandchildren were born here, so this house means more to us than anything else. It’s no longer just a house for me. It’s our history.”
Until now, three generations of Belardo’s family have lived under the same roof.
“I don’t know where to go, who to turn to. I don’t know what agency to talk to,” Belardo’s daughter Krystal Rodriguez said. “I’m devastated.”
She wants to know if their house needs to be propped up, and if so, when and who should pay for it?
“A house doesn’t make our family, you know, we make our family, but… I just don’t think it’s fair,” said Krystal’s daughter Amanda Rodriguez.
Saeidi immediately called the DOB to find out what was being done to protect the family’s home.
A spokesperson said they are not ordering Belardo to reinforce its building, but are requiring the neighbor to hire a professional engineer on site to guide and supervise the demolition.
Now the family waits.
“It’s also sad because it’s not just happening to us, it’s happening to many other families,” said Amanda Rodriguez.
Saeidi has called and emailed the contractor for comment but has not heard back.
The family said demolition of the house next door would begin Thursday evening.
Fort Greene residents homeless for 2 months after contractor error
In Fort Greene, residents are facing the same problem, caused by a different contractor.
City inspectors found that the contractor had performed work “contrary to DOB-approved plans,” causing a load-bearing shared wall to partially collapse.
Now, two months after the incident, both buildings remain empty, angering neighbors like Alec Hall. He says one family lived in one of the affected homes for decades; they were among those forced out and now living in a hotel.
“These buildings could have collapsed,” he said.
DOB records show the Fort Greene contractor has a previous safety violation. Saeidi also called and emailed the contractor in the Fort Greene incident for comment but has not heard back.
Meanwhile, the DOB says that “when contractors cut corners,” the department “uses every tool at our disposal to hold these bad actors accountable.”
While the DOB can halt work at one site, the agency does not have the legal authority to stop a contractor from working at another site, regardless of how many violations they have. The DOB says it is open to working with the City Council on new measures to increase accountability in the construction industry.
The DOB has been training contractors for two years and has seen a 32% decrease in stop-work orders.
In both the Bushwick and Fort Greene cases, the violations are open. The contractors will have the opportunity to attend a hearing and challenge what the DOB has determined. It is possible that the judge will dismiss the DOB’s complaints.
