CM Brewer presents Intro 860 on building street number inspection and enforcement

And I want to acknowledge that we've been joined in person by Councilmember Zhuang and over Zoom by Councilmember Salam.

Thank you very much.

I'm across the street at another hearing that I'm co-chairing, so I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier, but I do want to talk about Intro 860, which is quite different than some of the others.

This has to do with addresses on buildings, and it's something that I have been talking about for a very long time, so I hope this bill passes.

We all know that in many cases, it is important to have clearly

blade building numbers to help first responders, residents, delivery workers, tourists, and me trying to get to the next event.

And ensuring that every building is properly and visibly numbered strengthens public safety and makes navigating our neighborhoods easier, and it's also the law.

I will say that, you know, there have been many times, this New York Times story, even back to 1929, where people were so frustrated about this issue that there was no number on the building.

So fast forward to 2017, I was a Manhattan Borough President.

I passed Local Law 26 with Jumaane Williams, who was then in the council, to reinforce the display requirements and increase the civil penalty.

For failing to post street numbers, and the cost fine went from $25 to $250.

But crucial to this effort was the support of then Fire Commissioner Negro, who knew better than anyone

that seconds count and response time is wasted when 911 callers, that's the hearing I am at across the street, cannot quickly identify the location of a life-threatening emergency.

A decade later, that's how many years it was,

We didn't know which agencies are responsible for enforcing this common sense law for both residential and commercial buildings.

Believe me, we had no idea.

So building number violation.

remain severely underreported and as of today there's no way to officially report a missing building number to 311 or any other city agency.

So this intro 860, this is what it would do, would authorize HPD

and the fire department to inspect buildings for required physical street numbers during their routine inspections of buildings.

If either agency finds that the building is noncompliant, the agency may take enforcement actions consistent with the rules and regulations established by the Department of City Planning.

The bill would also create a new complaint pathway, 311, that would require either HPD or FDNY to proactively inspect the building regarding a missing or improperly displayed street number.

Owners would remain accountable for meeting basic legal and administrative requirements.

I certainly want to thank Tyler.

Isaiah Walls of the Council Legislative Division and Shula Puder for mine.

My support staff for making this happen.

I know all these bills are important, but if you ask New Yorkers what is most important, it has two things.

That goddamn ABC on the restaurant, which I don't care about, but they do.

Or I can't find the building.

So I really hope that you support this bill, do you?

I'll start.

I think we do support the bill, Councilmember.

I think we just want it to...

work with you and with DCP, who's already writing rules based on the previous iteration of something comparable, just to make sure that we are not, we're all rowing in the same direction.

But generally, we 100% support the bill.

Thank you very much.

And then just in terms of housing, SRO housing, you need to purchase them on the Upper West Side.

The Windermere on 57th Street and the Imperial Court on 79th Street.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Brewer.

I now want to turn it to Councilmember Nurse.