Safety Violations Issued At Half Of Inspected Queens Work Sites

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Central Queens resident Diego Lliguicota, 32, fell to his death this May while working on the sixth floor of a Long Island City building.

Lliguicota is one of seven construction workers who died in an accident during the first five months of 2021, prompting a “zero tolerance” construction safety campaign from the Department of Buildings aimed at improving site safety.

Since June, the agency inspected nearly 7,500 building construction sites citywide, issued over 3,600 safety violations, and shuttered 1,499 construction sites across the five boroughs, according to data released this week by the Department of Buildings.

In Queens, nearly half of the 1,929 construction sites that inspectors visited were issued safety violations, amounting to 934 citations. Over 330 sites in the borough were closed completely, records show.

The campaign, however, is just part of the Department of Building’s routine, year-round inspections, which will continue this year alongside specific visits to those sites that had “egregious site safety violations,” the agency said.

“Each of these violations represents the risk of injury or death workers have been subject to across our city,” said Queens City Council Member Francisco Moya of the agency’s findings.

“Proper safeguards should be the floor not the ceiling,” he added, commending the Department of Buildings for its efforts to advance construction safety, including a package of agency-recommended construction safety bills, which are being considered by the city council.

He said that oversight and accountability is “one way we continue to work to make contractors accountable and prioritize the safety of the public and workers.”