Illegal Apartments

One of the main reasons so many Borough residents are concerned about proper enforcement of housing and fire codes is that improper enforcement, by permitting overcrowded or unsafe conditions, opens the Borough up to liability in a potential wrongful death suit if a fire destroys an overcrowded dwelling and kills or injures people living in those unsafe conditions.

Just such an incident happened in Bayonne last summer, and last fall, the family of the man killed in the fire filed just such a lawsuit.

I don’t know how that lawsuit is going, or what the odds are of such an incident, or such a lawsuit, happening in North Plainfield. But so long as there are unanswered questions about inconsistent or improper enforcement of local housing and fire codes, there’s some level of risk.

This topic – including step-by-step information about how the local code enforcement process should work to penalize the landlords by imposing fines (payable both to the tenants, to assist them in relocation to safer dwellings, and to the Borough) will be one of the subjects on the agenda for the February 7, 2008 Town Meeting, 7 p.m., Vermeule Community Center.