DeSena announces TNH Building Dept Reforms

By Mark Demetropoulos

North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena unveiled significant reforms to the town building department to make the Town “user friendly” to the town’s residents.

DeSena announced the reforms during a roll-out news conference held at Town Hall.

The reforms include the digitization of the Town’s land records which go back decades: This will allow staffers at the building to be able to pull records more quickly and speed up the permit process to the benefit of the residents of the Town of North Hempstead.

“The most important thing is breaking down the wall between the residents and that department," stated DeSena. “This is going to help our staff as well, to facilitate communications, so that important information is available to our residents, as well as the professionals in the field, so that they have a reasonable expectation of how long a project will take."

The North Hempstead Building Department has been a nightmare of harassment against town residents, and a political patronage sump for the town's Democrats - for decades.

In addition, the town's 311 call center will relay department inquiries to persons with expertise in the area of building records.

The town plans to create a digital log of 311 calls that will be forwarded to the building department and in turn these calls will be answered by a building inspector, who will be assigned to specific building permit and question inquiries.

These inspectors shall then have two (2) days to respond to the callers requests.

This proposal will be able to greatly reduce the bureaucratic maze that callers used to experience when they sought information from the building department.

Supervisor DeSena has made reform of the building department - and ending the horror of dealing with the department under prior administrations – a personal priority.

“This proposal by Supervisor Jen DeSena is an example of how she is bringing common sense and intelligence back to the Town of North Hempstead,” observed one longtime Port Washington resident.