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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, APR. 22-28, 2022 BXR
BY JASON COHEN
One Bronx councilmember is doubling
down on previous claims by the local fire
union president that if the Twin Parks
North West building had been inspected
as originally planned and issues with the
building’s self-closing doors identified,
then the devastating fire that killed 17 in
January could have been prevented.
City Councilmember Oswald Feliz,
a Fordham Democrat whose district includes
the Twin Parks apartments in Fordham
Heights, told the Bronx Times that
the fire was preventable if proper protocols
had been in place, following an April 6 joint
meeting of the City Council.
“The fire started due to the use of space
heaters, and the fire turned into a tragedy
because the self-closing doors were
not functioning,” said Feliz, who chairs
the Special Committee on Twin Parks
Citywide Taskforce on Fire Prevention.
“The fire occurred in a fire-proof building,
which means that the fire and smoke
could have been contained to the single
unit. However, due to defective self-closing
doors, smoke inundated the building and
allowed the fire to turn into the tragedy
that we saw 17 individuals lost their lives
due to smoke inhalation.”
The Jan. 9 Twin Parks blaze, believed to
have been started by a faulty space heater,
is the worst fire in the borough since the
Happy Land social club arson fire in 1990,
which claimed 87 lives. Seventeen people
were killed in the Twin Parks fire, including
eight children. Since tragedy struck,
there have been four separate lawsuits
filed against the property owners and the
city.
At the joint meeting, the committee
on Fire and Emergency Management, the
Committee on Housing and Building and
the Special Committee on Twin Parks
Citywide Taskforce on Fire Prevention discussed
a package of legislation that would
tighten definitions of “self-closing door”;
set minimum temperatures buildings
would be required to maintain; require all
electric space heaters for sale in the city to
be equipped with a thermostat and an automatic
shutoff feature; and proivde additional
fire safety education and outreach.
Throughout the five hour-plus meeting,
councilmembers grilled FDNY and the
city Housing and Preservation Development
Department (HPD) representatives.
Several other city agencies that were requested
to attend the meeting, including
the Department of Buildings, were absent.
Fordham Councilmember Oswald Feliz believes that the Twin Parks fire, which killed 17 in his legislative
district, could have been prevented if protocols had been followed.
Photo John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
Councilmember Joann Ariola, a Queens
Republican, was fiery in her questioning of
HPD Commissioner AnnMarie Santiago as
to why only 270 building inspectors are employed
for 170,000 buildings citywide.
Santiago said that HPD is planning to
hire 100 more inspectors, but that HPD
only inspects buildings if there is a complaint.
Ariola, who chairs the Committee on
Fire and Emergency Management, said
HPD” is an absentee landlord.”
“What I would like to see is for HPD to
take care of the buildings they are responsible
for,” she said.
However, according to HPD spokesman
William Fowler, no self-closing door violations
have been issued to the Twin Parks
building since 2019. Most recently, two violations
were issued in 2017 and one in 2019
and these conditions were reinspected,
and all were corrected by HPD inspectors
by August 2020.
Oren Barzilay, president of the of FDNY
EMS Local 2507, told the Bronx Times that
the FDNY had the funding to hire 600 inspectors
a few years ago, but only hired
roughly 400. Then, when COVID-19 arrived
in New York City, 94 of those inspectors
were reassigned to a COVID task force
to hand out masks and make sure restaurants
were following the NYC indoor mask
mandate. Barzilay said that a scheduled
inspection of the Twin Parks building
was postponed due to those COVID assignments.
Already understaffed, the coronavirus
put fire officials in a tough spot, he said.
“We were already short and now you
are taking away more resources with hundreds
of buildings to be inspected,” Barzilay
said. “I’m not saying it would have
prevented the fire and smoke from spreading,
but they would have seen the issue
with the self-closing doors.”
According to HPD spokesman William
Fowler, however, no self-closing door violations
have been issued at the Twin Parks
building since 2019. Two violations were
issued in 2017 and one in 2019 and these
conditions were reinspected, and all were
corrected by HPD inspectors by August
2020, Fowler said.
Ariola also said another way to improve
fire safety is to have five firefighters on all
FDNY engines citywide. In 2011, the city
reduced staffing for 60 of its engine companies
to four firefighters, finalizing the reduction
on all 194 citywide engines to four
firefighters and one officer. The move was
projected to save the city $30 million in
overtime costs.
In 2020, Councilmember Justin Brannan,
a Brooklyn Democrat, introduced legislation
to bring back the fifth firefighter
— Ariola hopes it’s approved soon. Currently,
only 20 FDNY engines have five
firefighters.
“If there’s a fifth firefighter, you’re not
taking every engine,” Ariola said.
Feliz told the Times that the city must
also create a better system for enforcement
of its housing laws. One of the pieces of legislation
the council member is sponsoring
would require that landlords correct
self-closing door violations within 10 days,
and that HPD reinspect after that period of
time has lapsed. Under his proposal, landlords
would be fined $250 to $500 for selfclosing
door violations and an additional
$250 each day that the issue is not rectified.
The councilmember said the hope is
the proposed hefty fines for violations hurt
their pockets enough that they start to
take things seriously and provide tenants
with basic living conditions.
“We must hold bad actors accountable
by seeking civil penalties for failing to correct
conditions,” Feliz said.
More inspectors could have
prevented Twin Parks fire: pols
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