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Building code fines disproportionately hit NYC's Black and Hispanic areas, audit finds
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Apr 21, 2025
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Grace Cary / Getty Images
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Apr 21, 2025
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Homeowners in New York City’s communities of color are being disproportionately fined for building violations, according to a new audit from Comptroller Brad Lander.
According to the audit, which focused on violations issued to single- and two-family homes in 2022 and 2023, the Department of Buildings relies almost exclusively on 311 complaints, which are anonymous, for its enforcement actions. And it said more complaints disproportionately rolled in from Black and Hispanic neighborhoods — leading to more violations.
“DOB cannot determine whether the communities most impacted by violations are in fact the communities with the highest number of code violations,” the audit states. “They are simply the communities that receive the highest number of complaints.”
But Department of Buildings spokesperson Andrew Rudansky criticized the analysis as “half-baked.” He noted violations are issued against property owners — not necessarily the people living in the homes — and criticized the comptroller’s office for not collecting ethnic or socioeconomic information about those owners to draw its conclusions.
The audit found that in the 10 community districts with the highest penalties, homeowners in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods faced high fines for building violations. The majority of fines were for illegal conversions and default judgments, or “no-show” judgments, which automatically get fines of $25,000, according to the audit.
Lander said the buildings department’s current approach is unfair and the agency should come up with a process that accounts for systemic inequities.
“The Department of Buildings’ lack of strategic enforcement and overreliance on anonymous 311 calls directly contributed to inequitable levels of fines in New York City’s communities of color,” Lander said. “We need a process that protects communities from overenforcement while also supporting compliance and safety, not arbitrary enforcement that unfairly impacts Black and Hispanic homeowners.”
Rudansky said the buildings department is required by law to review and respond to each 311 complaint it gets, and does so.
The 10 community districts with the highest accumulated fines — penalties of $20,000 or more — were disproportionately located in lower income communities, according to the audit. The district with the most properties with accumulated penalties over $20,000 was District 12 in Queens, encompassing the neighborhoods of Hollis, Jamaica, Jamaica Center, North Springfield Gardens, Rochdale, South Jamaica and St. Albans.
“In District 12, where the majority of residents are Black and Hispanic, these disproportionate penalties are not just statistics — they represent real families at risk of losing generational wealth due to bureaucratic barriers and inconsistent enforcement,” City Councilmember Kevin C. Riley said. “We must reimagine how city agencies engage with homeowners, especially in communities like the Northeast Bronx, by prioritizing equity, education and accountability."
The audit also found that the buildings department issued violations to several homeowners for failing to correct violations even after the homeowners submitted their plans to correct them, and were waiting for review and approval by the department. According to the report, the department review time for plans increased by 80% citywide when comparing the first quarters of 2022 and 2024.
Auditors recommended that penalties be paused while plans are under review, but the buildings department told the comptroller's office that plans alone don't demonstrate a violation has been corrected, according to the audit.
Rudansky said his agency made its concerns about the comptroller’s office not collecting property owners’ demographics known multiple times.
“It is truly unfortunate that instead of doing the hard work necessary to obtain accurate data and potentially actionable recommendations, they have decided to move forward using city resources to publish a half-baked audit that provides no usable information,” he said.
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Catalina Gonella
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