Residents riled up over illegal conversions
Southwest Brooklyn residents from Bath Beach to Sunset Park stormed a town hall meeting on Thursday, February 26 at their wits’ end over what Dyker Heights resident, parent and local arts teacher Jeanine Bardo referred to as “the new normal” – a lifestyle rife with illegal home conversions.
While Department of Buildings rep Tim Hogan promised an increase in Brooklyn inspectors by July, panelists and residents agreed that city agencies have done little to nothing to address the ripple effect these home makeovers have had on a swathe of Southwest Brooklyn.
“[Our new normal consists of] house[s] being completely gutted without permits during off hours; all of the refuse being put into vans and illegally carted away in the middle of the night,” contended Bardo to a standing-room-only crowd in the basement of the Knights of Columbus at 13th Avenue and 86th Street, also spotlighting storefront sweatshops and homes-turned-businesses as “obvious” instances in which the laws on the books are being “flouted.”