No Posted Building Permit (Code), No Posted Sidewalk Permit (DPW), No Posted Parking Permit (HPD)! We All Pay The Price For No One Paying Attention!

City Hall is supposed to protect us from this bullshit.

This was the scene surrounding 534 State Street for most of Saturday while the sun was up (but not shining).  First, though, some telling back story on the construction project there. 

A contractor began working on the side of the house at 534 State in late September or early October, setting up their equipment in the yard of the adjacent property which has been a vacant, neglected mess for several years.  (I guarantee that the owner of 536-538 State, apparently a resident of Kingston, did not give permission for the contractor to set up on his property.)  A few weeks into the work at 534 State, I noticed that there was no building permit posted on the house.  On October 22nd -- 3 or 4 weeks after work began at 534 State and a few days after I notified Nick Fox at Code Enforcement that there was no posted building permit on the house -- the owner of 534 State was issued a building permit by Code Enforcement (I received a copy of it via a FOIL request).  In other words, the property owner/landlord -- Mark Bodnar, whose name is on the permit -- allowed his hired contractor to begin work on his house without getting approval from Code Enforcement and being issued a Building Permit to begin the work.  In other other words, Code Enforcement approached Mark Bodnar about the unpermitted construction work taking place on his house only after I notified Nick Fox about the lack of a posted building permit there. In other other other words, unpermitted construction work was taking place on a house for close to a month (or more) without Code Enforcement being aware of it.  534 State is about two blocks from the Code offices on Washington Street, which of course is unstaffed every weekend.

There are more than a few contractors who are wily enough to do work on weekends when City Hall is closed so that no one will bother them about not having a Parking Permit from HPD, a Sidewalk Permit from DPW, or a Building Permit from Code.  Over the years, I have seen many instances of roofing contractors quickly replacing a roof on a Saturday and/or Sunday without having been issued permits, including a Building Permit from Code (all roof work requires one).  HPD is powerless to do anything about it, and no one is paying attention.  But the most frightening thing of all, perhaps, is that there are no consequences -- financial or otherwise -- for a building contractor to not have the proper permits to work on buildings, block the sidewalk and occupy parking spaces (or make them unavailable, as with cones or toolboxes).  Our Code Enforcement Department is underfunded, understaffed and completely toothless, moreso on the weekends and when there is only one person available at Code Enforcement.

Yesterday, I got an automatic email response from head Code Enforcement Officer, Nick Fox, who took over the helm there in January. He is out all this week, at least his second week of absence. For the time being, Nick's new full-time assistant -- a friendly fellow by the name of Justin Neves who began work at most two months ago with, as I understand, no previous code enforcement experience -- is the only person representing our Code Enforcement Department. A few weeks ago, Justin was out for an entire week on what Nick's new part-time receptionist (two days a week?) told me was a "holiday," whatever the hell that means.

As of this morning, nearly 3 weeks after our Code Enforcement Department issued a building permit to the owner of 534 State to allow a "new roof and built in gutters," there is still no posted building permit on the house that the contractor began work on at least 5 weeks ago. (The blocking of the sidewalk was not an issue until Saturday, and the new roof was completed on Sunday.)  At the bottom of the copy of the building permit that I received for 534 State is this:  BUILDING PERMITS SHALL BE VISIBLY DISPLAYED AT THE WORK SITE.

This, of course, is complete nonsense horseshit.  Here in Hudson, unlike all municipalities paying attention and with their shit together, permits and the "rules" associated with them -- even written on them -- are all optional.  Ignoring them won't get you or your contractor in any kind of trouble.