The Jersey City Council is contemplating placing a lien on a property owner and developer after a building under construction partially collapsed onto an adjacent building and required the city to step in and demolish it.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
At Monday’s caucus, Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director Greg Kierce explained a resolution for an emergency contract totaling $114,700 with Eglentowicz Demolition and Environmental Company.
The reason being is that the second story of a multi-story building under construction at 84 Stegman St. sustained significant damage during the July 3rd storm with heavy rain, lightning, and high winds with gusts over 50 miles per hour.
“Repeated attempts to contact the property owner using the information posted at the site were unsuccessful,” Kierce recalled.
“Given the urgent need … of the emergency and the immediate danger to life and property, there was insufficient time for the Department of Public Works to solicit formal quotations. Emergency demolition and debris removal were thereby authorized and this resolution ratifies the emergency contact in the award of $114,700.”
According to the Kierce, the high winds caused the second story to shift from its foundation and onto an adjacent property creating an extremely hazardous condition.
Subsequently, a representative from OEM, the Jersey City Fire Department, and the Jersey City Building Department conducted a damage assessment and determined that the remaining structure presented an “imminent threat” to public safety.
As such, the Construction Subcode Official has ordered the immediate demolition of the structure, and the evacuation of the surrounding properties to “protect the lives and safety of nearby occupants,” arguing it was necessary to demolish the structure and remove debris to “protect the health, welfare, and safety of constituents,” the resolution says.
Due to the emergency, time did not permit DPW to obtain formal quotes, as the department secured a vendor that could do the work in a timely manner and notified the purchasing agent that an emergency existed.
Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore asked the administration not to issue any more permits to the property owner of 84 Stegman St. until the developer pays the bills for this in full, suggesting the city place a lien to make sure that they are reimbursed.
According to Jersey City property records, the owner of the property is listed as 84 Stegman Street Associates, LLC based out of Brooklyn with a mailing address registered to Aron Krausz.
“We can make sure that we’re very strict on that, because ultimately the onus should have been on the developer to bring the building down and not have city workers out there working on Saturday and Sunday and us negotiating private contracts with private vendors,” Gilmore said.
“That’s something that they should have done. They’re well within capacity to do it. In fact, I’ll even make the argument you should pull all open permits until he pay, because he’s got about four or five new constructions going on right now.”
Councilman at-Large Michael Griffin noted this was the same developer who owns a dilapidated bank on Monticello Avenue that just had an electrical fire, but isn’t doing anything to secure the property.
“This developer is … I hope he’s watching,” he noted.
Assistant Business Administrator Peter Horton said that the administration agrees “fervently” with him on the matter, but still let Corporation Counsel Sarah Levine opine on legality of what the administration and council do about it.
“The intent is obviously we approach the developer first, ask them to remit payment to us, reimburse us because that’s the quickest way to get the money back to the taxpayers,” Horton said.
“However, if they’re unable to do so, you’re correct the lien is our next greatest option.”
He said the city typically asks developers to pay first before pursuing a lien on the property and prior to using “a dime of the city’s money.”
“In most cases, a lot of developers are willing and responsive. They have contractors that are supposed to be posted on the site and working on the site and maintaining the site and they’re the first ones to do that,” Horton added.
“In this case, the contractor that was posted was not actually the contractor doing the work, so there was a lot of violations relating to that.”
The assistant BA also added that he made sure that during the demolition that all violations that could be assigned to the developer were levied by the construction department.
“They have made sure that they’ve looked at everything that was applicable … from every construction angle, safety angle, fire angle, all that kind of stuff,” Horton added.
“They’ve done their due diligence there. And I’m happy to talk offline about what we should do broadly for any developer, not just this one or any homeowner that does not follow standards and what we should be doing for reviewing those practices.”
While they weren’t able to contact the developer at first, Horton said they finally did get in touch but they were not moving as quickly as they should have given the “imminent danger.”
“We had to bring that in-house and have the city do the work for them. The second step there is then we contact a developer and say ‘Hey, we had to do this work. Here’s why we had to do it. Remit us the money,” he continued.
“If they remit us the money back, then at least that part of it is resolved. If they do not pay is for that money for whatever reason, then we attach a lien to the property, which means they cannot sell the property until that payment is made to the city.”
Griffin asked Horton for clarify after Kierce told the council they could not reach the developer at all, to which Horton told him that while the city could not reach them on Friday when the collapse happened, but they did a couple days later.
However, Horton said they were still unable to have their contractor respond quickly enough, prompting the decision to be made to do the work in-house and bill the property owner after-the-fact.
“We had to do it because it was leaning on another building. We had to vacate the buildings next to it. And obviously, we want to ensure the safety of the surrounding premises and any people that might be going by it,” he explained.
Ward C Councilman Tom Zuppa asked if they can put the lien on now to avoid “any funny business” by the developer to sell the building or property, and praised the city for utilizing the demolition statute to act quickly and get the job done.
Levine confirmed that the council can put the lien on 84 Stegman St. now regardless of how it’s typically done, prompting Zuppa to double down on his to act immediately.
“I would just put the lien on it now. Let’s not miss out on this opportunity. If you ask, they may say yes, they may so no. You put the lien, they’re going to have to pay it at some point,” he asserted.
Responding to Councilwoman at-Large Mamta Singh about options to hold the developer accountable amid other decrepit properties, Levine said they can talk offline, but that once a developer has been granted a permit, they have certain entitlements.
“We can certainly enforce our code and make sure that any violations that are happening on any sites are enforced and are remedied,” Levine stated.
