RC Executive Ed Day Says Building Codes Inspectors are Looking Only for “Horrible Conditions” and Only in Spring Valley

By Sarah Morgenstern

Rockland County Executive Ed Day reassured residents of Spring Valley that under state law, code inspectors cannot enter one or two-family homes “unless there is reasonable suspicion or probable cause that leads inspectors to go and check it out,” he said Friday on WRCR1700, three weeks after the new Rockland County Office of Buildings and Codes assumed full control of the Buildings Department in Spring Valley.

“If the fire department, for example, goes to a location and finds violations of codes, then inspectors can go it, not a problem, but those inspectors have to form the basis of fact before they can go in and inspect homes that are occupied by one or two families.”

Day also emphasized that the efforts of the inspectors are “solely and legally limited to the village of Spring Valley.”

What the new Spring Valley inspectors are looking for are “horrible conditions in homes, and even nightclubs,” explained Day, referring to an unlicensed nightclub at which 87 people died in a fire set by an arsonist in the Bronx in 1990.

Two years before the deadly fire, the nightclub was ordered to close for building code violations, including a lack of fire exits, alarms and a sprinkler system. 

Day compared the fire risks at the nightclub in the Bronx to a recent home inspection in Spring Valley in which “we had two dozen people crammed into a house.”

“It was a situation where there was imminent threat to life,” Day said. “That is the kind of situation that was at risk here and I want people in Rockland to understand. 

“The fines that we can levy: $5,000 per violation, are per our own local law and passed by our legislature.

Charging landlords large sums of money is the only way to stop them from creating fire hazards in their properties and putting tenants’ lives at risk, Day explained.