Public Testimony: Lack of Enforcement of L&I Code Harms and Displaces our Communities
Happy Friday, Neighbors,
This past Monday – May 2nd, 2022 – I provided public testimony to City Council’s Committee on Labor and Civil Service, who had met to discuss multiple bills and resolutions that day. The resolution I came to speak on was resolution #220249, “Authorizing the Committee on Labor and Civil Service to hold hearings to examine the enforcement of building and construction code requirements, Licenses and Inspections inspector caseload and inspector staffing ratios, and the City's response to worker misclassification, also known as payroll fraud.” You can read the resolution on the City Counil “Legistar” website, here.
The section concerning resolution #220249, which starts with testimony by the Acting Commissioner of Licenses & Inspections, Ralph DiPietro, begins approximately 50 minutes into the meeting. It’s a long recording, so here are a few links to jump directly to some (not all) testimonials:
Committee Chairperson Parker introduces the discussion of resolution #220249 with opening remarks. (50:07 m)
Opening testimony by Acting Commissioner, Ralph DiPietro.' (1:04:56)
Testimony by Stephen Hertzenberg from the Keystone Research Center. (2:32:51)
The written version of my testimony, which was submitted ahead of the hearing, can be found below!
I’m working on a follow up to give a more thoughtful and clear answer to Committee Chair Parker’s question towards the end of the Q&A section asking why tax dollars should be dedicated to a suggestion given in my testimony to create a pilot program that will connect residents to legal and structural engineer services. Stay tuned for that follow-up in a future post!
Your Millennial Neighbor,
Michele Gaffney (She/Her/Hers)
Testimony of Michele Gaffney, Philadelphia 19125 Resident, Constituent of Councilmember Mark Squilla, and Local Community Advocate and Consultant for Adjacent Construction Safety and Residents’ Rights, to City Council’s Committee on Labor and Civil Service on Resolution 220249
May 2, 2022
Thank you, members of the Committee, my name is Michele Gaffney. I am a homeowner in Olde Richmond here to testify on resolution 220249. I do not have a background in construction. Rather, my experience is in project management, operations, and communications.
Since October 2020, I’ve acted as a Community Advocate and Consultant for Adjacent Construction Safety and Residents’ Rights. I help victims to document, report, and seek resolutions for their plight. I also work with aid organizations to help build their capacity to similarly assist residents.
In my work, I act as a resource and a bridge across a massive communications and knowledge gap between L&I and residents. Construction issues between residents and developers are extremely complex and require a significant investment of time to research and navigate – something most residents don’t have to spare. This burden on the impacted resident is a full-time job, and right now it is falling to unqualified residents and self-taught volunteers like me to do it.
In doing this work, I have observed dangerous worksites that ignore safety procedures. I have seen notorious developers cited with frequent violations escape accountability by using LLCs and shifting blame to contractors that they chose to hire. Offenders do not communicate with neighbors and they endanger their laborers because they know these groups usually don’t have the information they need or the protections they deserve. These bad actors take advantage of L&I’s enforcement limitations. They know that the responsiveness to a 311 case will not be timely. They skip steps because they do not expect to be caught, and if they are, they will “just pay the fine.” They know that when damage occurs, it is “a civil matter” and most adjacent residents won’t have access to structural engineers, lawyers, or legal services. They seem to count on a resident becoming so overwhelmed that they give up.
This gap between the city and its residents creates extra work for L&I. Residents don’t understand the role of inspectors, let alone whether an issue should be reported to L&I, or to another agency entirely. Residents submit to 311, but don’t hear back and start making phone calls to anyone who will answer. This cultivates a general feeling that the city does not prioritize the safety or concerns of its taxpaying residents, and places a burden across agencies and offices that are powerless to help residents with these issues. Residents become frustrated and resentful. It’s a vicious cycle.
The Committee on Licenses and Inspections already held similar hearings that included these this concerns on February 21, 2020 (resolution number 200043). Here we are, two years later, and L&I’s workload has steeply increased. According to PEW research, more than 26,000 building permits were issued in 2021 – 5 times the amount issued in 2020, 2019, or other past years. (395 site visits by AIU)
A case load increase like this not only stands to cause increased burnout in L&I inspectors, but to encourage inspectors to speed through their obligations to meet their caseload. It also risks an exponential increase in the volume of harm, damages, displacement, and financial burden on your constituents.
I would ask that the Council engage qualified data analysis experts to investigate the following items:
The impact of actions that were and were not taken after the 2020 hearing.
The impacts of 5-times more permits on L&I staff burnout, staff turnover rates, the volume of construction site complaints, the volume of violations issued.
If you take nothing else away from my testimony today, please remember this: The overwhelming workload that L&I inspectors are facing is not just about the number of inspectors. The city must look at what is working, what isn’t working, and what could be missing from the equation altogether. Residents need access to information and expert support when they are impacted by adjacent construction so that they don’t bog down an already overwhelmed system with misguided attempts to get help.
With that in mind, my recommendations include the following.
Create a staffed department or position dedicated to fielding constituent construction concerns. Make this role or department responsible for redirecting reports to the correct agencies and for educating residents so that L&I staff can focus on their duties. Include follow up with residents in the responsibilities for this role.
Create a program or provide funding to existing services earmarked for connecting impacted residents to engineer and legal services.
Create a developer’s license so developers can be held accountable from job site to job site, just like contractors.
Monitor construction site violations across multiple city agencies in order to identify major offenders racking up violations. Investigate those offenders. Ban them from building here if necessary.
Moderate the volume of permits so L&I inspectors are never stretched too thin. The city cannot allow the revenue brought in by permit application fees to act as an incentive to issue more permits than L&I can reasonably monitor and enforce.
Review testimonials from the 2020 hearing, and take action on them. We were in desperate need of immediate action then, and we are beyond overdue for immediate action and relief now.
Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to continuing to communicate with this committee on these issues.
Sincerely,
Michele Gaffney (She/Her/Hers)