In response to the tragedy of East Harlem’s building explosion, Brennan Ortiz, a Welcome2TheBronx reader has started a petition urging the city to start rating residential buildings in a similar fashion that restaurants are rated.
In the petition he writes:
In the same manner in which the New York City Health Department conducts inspections of restaurants within the city in order to present the public with a scored grade, the city should too inspect all residential buildings throughout the five boroughs to cite the conditions of these apartment buildings for the public. Due to expensive housing costs, too many New Yorkers are strained to reside in buildings which do not maintain safety standards and are therefore compromising livability. Issues such as faulty infrastructure, withering environments and even landlord harassment left unresolved by governmental neglect, plague a great majority of New Yorkers. By grading our city’s residential buildings we can prompt the building’s landlords to more directly tend to the problems in question, all the while warranting the assistance of the government and organizations in helping improve performance and resilience. In a city where housing is a disproportionate necessity, this will bring us a step closer to a more equitable New York.
Please sign the petition and share with your family, friends, and networks: http://www.change.org/petitions/melissa-mark-viverito-rate-livability-conditions-of-residential-buildings-in-new-york-city