The City Council on Tuesday proposed requiring that all commercial and residential high-rise buildings undergo mandatory anti-terror inspections by the Fire Department. “The events of Sept. 11 made clear how vulnerable some of our city’s physical infrastructure is,” Speaker Gifford Miller (D-Manhattan) said during a City Hall news conference. “We need to realize that we are in a different world.” Currently, about 70 percent of all high-rises — defined as seven stories or more — receive Fire Department inspections at a cost to the landlord of $210 per-hour, which generated $40 million for city coffers last year, council officials said. Requiring all building owners to undergo the inspections is just another way to tax landlords and generate revenues to help close the city’s projected $3.8 billion budget gap, real estate officials said. “Our members already hire the best professionals to protect their buildings,” said Steven Spinola, head of the Real Estate Board. Full Story
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