Roughly 6 months after the catastrophic partial collapse of a Bronx apartment building, the City Council on Thursday approved legislation aimed at stopping such structural damage from slipping through the cracks in the future.
The Billingsley Terrace Structural Integrity Bill, which is named after the building that partially collapsed in December at 1915 Billingsley Terrace, stipulates the city Department of Buildings must create a “proactive inspection” program. In practice that means looking at predictive factors like a building owner’s violation history, compliance filings and the disciplinary records of their registered design professionals to identify which properties are at risk of structural damage.
