2 CITY COUNCIL

CITY OF NEW YORK

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THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE MINUTES

of the

COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

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10 December 5, 2003

Start: 1:25 p.m.

11 Recess: 3:05 p.m.

12 City Hall

Council Chambers

13 New York, New York

B E F O R E:

MADELINE PROVENZANO

16 Chairperson,

COUNCIL MEMBERS: Jose Rivera

18 Diana Reyna

Tony Avella

19 Gale Brewer

Leroy Comrie

20 Robert Jackson

Kendall Stewart

21 Erik Dilan

Christine Quinn

22 Charles Barron

24 LEGAL‑EASE COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC.

17 Battery Place ‑ Suite 1308

25 New York, New York 10004

(800) 756‑3410

2 A P P E A R A N C E S

Dr. Thomas Frieden

4 Commissioner

New York City Department of Health

5 and Mental Hygiene

6 Jerilyn Perine

Commissioner

7 New York City Department of Housing Preservation

and Development

Linda Gibbs

9 Commissioner

New York City Department of Homeless Services

Wilfredo Lopez

11 General Counsel for HUD

New York City Department of Health

12 and Mental Hygiene

13 Harold Schultz

Special Counsel

14 New York City Department of Housing Preservation

and Development

1 COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

2 CHAIRPERSON PROVENZANO: If things

3 look a little confusing, they are. This is what,

4 Bill, fourth, fifth hearing?

5 COUNCIL MEMBER PERKINS: That's a

6 good number.

7 CHAIRPERSON PROVENZANO: We'd like to

8 move it along as quickly as possible. For those of

9 you that don't know, there's a storm outside and

10 we'd like people to get home quickly and safely, so

11 I'm asking everybody to be as brief as possible.

12 We'll start with Council Member

13 Perkins, who promised me he had a brief opening

14 statement.

15 COUNCIL MEMBER PERKINS: Thank you

16 very much, Madam Chair, for your cooperation and the

17 opportunity to make a brief opening statement.

18 I am disappointed that the

19 administration walked away from the negotiating

20 table at the eleventh hour when the health and

21 wellbeing of New York City's children is at stake.

22 This bill is the most comprehensive, effective lead

23 bill legislation in the country.

24 Further, it is a reasonable and

25 approachable bill that addresses the legislative

1 COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

2 concerns of the administration while still

3 protecting the health of children. I urge the Mayor

4 to take another look at this bill and invite him to

5 join us in passing sweeping legislation that will

6 ultimately save hundreds of thousands of children in

7 our city from the hazards of lead paint and lead

8 paint poisoning. Thank you very much.

9 CHAIRPERSON PROVENZANO: That was

10 very brief, Bill.

11 We have Tom Frieden from the

12 Department of Health and Mental Health. We have

13 Jerilyn Perine from HPD, and we have Linda Gibbs

14 from the Department of Homeless Services. So

15 whichever one of you wants to start first.

16 COMMISSIONER FRIEDEN: Good

17 afternoon. I'm Dr. Thomas Frieden, Commissioner of

18 Health and Mental Hygiene. I appreciate the

19 opportunity to speak with the Council, this City

20 Council Committee on Housing and Buildings and other

21 members of the Council about lead poisoning

22 prevention in New York City and the latest version

23 of Intro. 101A.

24 We're all concerned with stopping

25 lead poisoning in New York City. Several weeks ago

1 COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

2 I testified before you about Intro. 101A. I

3 addressed components that, with some slight

4 modification to ensure, a law would protect those at

5 greatest need would allow us to achieve our goals.

6 Most of those concerns appear to have been addressed

7 in the latest version of the bill, however there are

8 still issues of concern. It would be irresponsible

9 to rush into a law that has such wide ramifications

10 for the city's health and for the city's housing and

11 that includes components that have potentially very

12 large costs but which do little or nothing to

13 address lead poisoning and to prevent it in our

14 children.

15 I'll briefly review these issues with

16 you. First is the issue of a chewable surface under

17 the latest version of the bill. In the latest

18 version, landlords would be required to remediate

19 all window sills in all pre‑ 1960 buildings in every

20 neighborhood in New York City where there's a child

21 under the age of seven. There are an estimated

22 350,000 dwelling units in New York City with such a

23 child. Assuming for a moment that an average of

24 eight window sills per dwelling unit, that's 2.8

25 window sills which need to be remediated in the near

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2 future. No matter how stringently work practices

3 are monitored, it is quite possible that some of

4 that remediation will involve the generation of lead

5 dust and that unintentionally that component could

6 result in more rather than less lead poisoning.

7 Remediation of window sills should be

8 predicated on a real risk of poisoning. The best

9 scientific knowledge suggests that most childhood

10 lead poisoning results from hand‑ to‑ mouth

11 activity. Remediation should be done where there's

12 evidence that such a risk exists. Thus, we

13 recommend that chewable surfaces be defined as an

14 edge or protrusion that has been chewed or is

15 deteriorated or where an occupant has notified the

16 owner that a child lives there has mouthed or chewed

17 it. In other words, either if it is actually

18 deteriorated or if a parent or a family member or a

19 child requests remedial action. We're not saying it

20 shouldn't be done, we're saying it doesn't make

21 sense to do this in nearly 3 million window sills in

22 short order because you may actually cause more lead

23 poisoning than you prevent. We know there's a risk

24 of causing lead poisoning when you disrupt intact

25 lead paint. We're not certain that doing this will

1 COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

2 prevent many or even any cases of lead poisoning.

3 Second, we want to emphasize once

4 again the need for realistic time lines. It is the

5 owner's obligation to correct the hazards and the

6 owner needs adequate time to do this. HPD will

7 discuss most of the time line issues, but I do want

8 to discuss one that specifically pertains to the

9 Health Department. The current version requires

10 that we certify to HPD any dwelling unit where the

11 landlord failed to comply with the order to correct

12 the violation. We support this provision as we do

13 so many other provisions in this version of the

14 bill.

15 New York City is one of the only, if

16 not the only place in the U.S. Where a city will

17 correct a hazard when the landlord fails to do so.

18 But the current bill requires that this

19 certification be completed within 16 days of the

20 report of the elevated blood lead level. This is a

21 problem. When a blood lead test is received, the

22 Health Department inspector goes out within an

23 average of about two days. However, there are

24 situations where access into a dwelling unit is not

25 successful. Sometimes the family's out of town.

1 COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

2 Sometimes the family is not easily found. Physicians

3 frequently don't accurately write an address on the

4 blood test request requisition slip. Sometimes it's

5 not the family's primary residence or address.

6 Until we get into a home we don't know if there's a

7 lead‑ based paint hazard at all. And in about 40%

8 of the addresses we don't find a lead paint hazard.

9 Once we identify a violation we issue a legal order

10 to the landlord to abate. It takes several days to

11 prepare that order so it will stand up in court if

12 it's challenged, as it often is, or sometimes is,

13 and it takes some time to serve it or have it arrive

14 at the landlord. The landlord is then given five

15 days to correct. Certifying to HPD within 16 days is

16 neither efficient nor effective. In many cases the

17 landlord would have begun doing the work and we will

18 now have HPD trying to do the work as well.

19 We recommend a simple change in this

20 provision, that the provision specify that the

21 certification process be completed within 16 days of

22 the date of identification of lead‑ based paint

23 hazards. The implementation time for this

24 legislation is also unrealistic. As you know, the

25 discussion of this legislation has been going on for

1 COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND BUILDINGS

2 many months. The legal, technical and

3 administrative aspects of implementation are

4 extraordinarily complex. We want to get it right.

5 We should proceed with speed but not with

6 irresponsible haste. It will take months to

7 promulgate regulations, hold public hearings on

8 those regulations, analyze and incorporate the many

9 comments which we are inevitably going to receive,

10 establish procedures for implementation and ensure

11 effective implementation. It may be easy to set a

12 deadline but ensuring that doing so doesn't

13 unintentionally lead to longer delays and effective

14 implementation of effective legislation is much

15 harder.

16 At the last hearing the Council

17 requested cost estimates. Since we only received

18 the bill very late last night, I can't give you an

19 exact estimate, but we remain concerned in

20 particular about the costly item of monitoring work

21 practices for large jobs for a variety of reasons,

22 including liability concerns which would arise in

23 all work done that covers more than a hundred square

24 feet. This could cost the Department of Health $7

25 million or much more than that and I don't thin