Turkish House was the Only Building of its Size & Category Allowed to Open Without an Approved Fire Protection Plan and Currently Operating Without Certificate of Occupancy, NYC Comptroller’s Investigation Finds

 

Subsequent review reveals broader problem of 600+ office buildings operating without Certificates of Occupancy, 88 of which are designated ‘Immediately Hazardous’

New York City Comptroller laid out the findings of his investigation into the City’s approval process for the Turkish House building, following allegations raised in the federal indictment by the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District against Mayor Eric Adams regarding the approval of Turkish House (also known as Turkevi Center, headquarters of the Turkish Consulate).

The investigation revealed that Turkish House was the only office building of its size and category allowed to open without an approved Fire Protection Plan (FPP). Despite rejecting a deficient FPP, the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) allowed the Department of Buildings (DOB) to issue a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (TCO) for the building on September 17, 2021, just in time for the building’s ribbon-cutting on September 20, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in attendance. The building was subsequently granted an additional 12 TCOs, with extensions approximately every ninety days, until September 26, 2024, when the last one expired, Turkish House is currently operating without a TCO or final Certificate of Occupancy (CO).

Additional review by the Comptroller’s Office identified 637 office buildings that are without valid TCOs or a final CO, for an average of three-and-a-half years. Of these buildings, which have thousands of unresolved DOB and Environmental Control Board (ECB) violations, 88 buildings have violations characterized as ‘immediately hazardous.’

“By rushing to allow the opening of Turkish House in advance of a ribbon-cutting ceremony with President Erdoğan, DOB and FDNY cut serious corners that could have compromised the safety of the occupants and neighbors of the building,” said Comptroller Brad Lander. “Turkish House was the only office building of its size and category in our investigation that was allowed to open without an approved Fire Protection Plan, a troubling breach of process. Our investigation also revealed a broader management issue at DOB: more than 600 office buildings are currently without a valid Certificate of Occupancy or Temporary Certificate of Occupancy, including 88 that have immediately hazardous violations. The safety of New Yorkers must not be compromised either by special favors or by bureaucratic delay.”

As outlined in the NYC Administrative Code, any new building must have a CO or a TCO from DOB before it can be occupied. While a CO describes the legal occupancy limits, layout, and allowable use of a building, DOB is authorized to issue a TCO provided that the occupied portion(s) of the building can be maintained without endangering public safety, health, or welfare. TCOs expire 90 days after issuance, and a new application for a TCO can be submitted to DOB for renewal. A permanent CO can only be issued after all violations are cleared, pending applications are resolved, and once issued, does not expire.

In the documents produced by DOB and FDNY, there was no record of FDNY conducting any fire safety inspections of Turkish House prior to DOB issuing the building’s initial TCO ahead of its ribbon cutting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in attendance on September 20, 2021. FDNY did not approve the Fire Protection Plan (FPP) until September 26, 2024, three years after Turkish House opened and has since been occupied.

• On July 26, 2021, FDNY issued a Letter of Disapproval of the FPP because the plan submitted was inadequate.

• On September 10, 2021, FDNY sent DOB a ‘Conditional Letter of No Objection’.

• On September 17, 2021, Sparc Fire Protection – the company that designed the fire alarm system – affirmed the fire alarm system, despite over 40 defects and untested fire safety items, such as central station and fan shutdowns.

• In a review of 6 other new-build mixed-use office buildings with twenty or more stories (Class O4) that have expired TCOs to assess the circumstances of Turkish House, none of the 6 buildings were granted initial TCOs without an approved FPP or granted an initial TCO without any FDNY inspection.

The first FDNY inspection occurred October 26, 2021– a month after the building opened.

• The first inspection resulted in a Notice of Defect on November 26, containing 40 outstanding issues with fire safety systems, for half of the floors.

• A second Notice on November 30 contained 15 outstanding issues on the remaining floors.

• These issues included incomplete sprinkler installations, lobby doors not auto-releasing upon alarm, and missing fire alarm speakers.

• FDNY reinspected on March 10 and 11, 2022 and found that 7 fire safety defects from 2021 had not been rectified.

• FDNY conducted another unannounced visit on April 13, where Turkish House failed to correct all the defects.

DOB issued 13 TCOs approximately every ninety days from the initial one on September 17, 2021 until July 26, 2024. Turkish House is currently operating without a TCO or final CO. According to DOB, “[l]apes of time between TCOs do occasionally occur,” and the lack of a TCO or CO is not a reason for the DOB to issue a vacate order.

• All 13 of Turkish House’s TCOs were renewed “without change” and renewed without exception.

• DOB denied the building’s application for a new TCO “with changes” on September 26, 2024, leaving the building without a valid TCO since October 1, 2024.

• Turkish House has yet to file an application for a final CO, but is not eligible because of the building’s remaining violations of Building Code and Environmental Control Board code – one related to the glass façade on the 16th floor (which previously fell ten stories) and five related to elevator testing.

Following up on the assertion by DOB that TCO lapses occur, our office analyzed TCO data and found 637 office buildings have lapsed or denied TCOs.

• These include 179 office or mixed-use buildings with twenty or more stories – like Turkish House.
• Of the 637 office buildings, on average, these offices have not had a valid CO for 1,282 days, about three and a half years.
• Some buildings of various heights and categories have not had a TCO for nearly 12 years.
• While not every open violation or lapsed TCO poses a risk to buildings or people, in order to assess the potential safety issues in the 637 buildings, investigators matched violations data from FDNY, DOB, and ECB and found almost 5,200 unresolved violations– 484 (75%) of buildings have FDNY violations, 356 (55%) have open DOB violations, 234 buildings have open ECB violations (37%).
• Only ECB provides a severity level of the violations. Class 1 Violations are listed as ‘Immediately Hazardous.’ Immediately hazardous violations are those where the ‘condition poses a threat that severely affects life, health, safety, property, the public interest, or a significant number of persons as to warrant immediate corrective action,” according to the New York City Construction Codes.
• Of the 816 ECB violations, 236 were listed as Class 1.
• ECB issued the 236 Class 1 Violations to 88 of the 637 office buildings without TCOs.

Read the full investigation here.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

It should be noted that City Comptroller Brad Lander has made it known with the NYCCFB that he is running for mayor this year. We have to question if he is using the office of City Comptroller for political gain since Eric Adams did not take office until January 1, 2022.