New York Ambulance Houses Lack Certificates, Suffer Flaws

If Brookhaven strictly enforced its building codes, the town would have to cite at least three of its ambulance houses for operating without certificates of occupancy - a violation that can get private homeowners ticketed or even evicted.

In fact, it's common knowledge among ambulance volunteers that all nine of Brookhaven's ambulance buildings lack the legally required certificates, former Mastic Volunteer Ambulance Company Chief Tim Ryan said.

He raised the issue at the last town board meeting because three of the town-owned buildings - in Medford, East Moriches and Mount Sinai - suffer construction flaws severe enough that volunteers have been begging town officials for hundreds of thousands of dollars to make repairs.

"We want you to stop being a slum landlord," Ryan told the board.

Town officials and volunteers said the three buildings lack mandatory sprinkler systems and have substandard heating and air conditioning and meeting-room doors that swing inward rather than outward - all fire hazards.

Volunteers said the ambulance house on Crystal Brook Hollow Road in Mount Sinai, home of the Port Jefferson Volunteer Ambulance Company, gets several inches of water in its basement after heavy rains - overflow from a broken drain just outside an emergency exit.

"We could do water rescues down there," joked assistant chief Jim Crispino, pointing to the three inches of scummy water in a pool by the door.

The building, like those in Medford and East Moriches, was contracted to be built by Water Mill-based PERT Construction in 1998, but Brookhaven officials fired the company in late 2000, citing excessive project delays.

PERT president Joseph Andreassi said the real problem was that his company wasn't one of the politically connected firms that usually did business with the town. "We were ruffling feathers somewhere along the line," he said. "As a result they yanked all the agreements we had."

The town's engineering department then managed the projects, little more than foundations at that point, to completion.

Port Jefferson Ambulance chief Jack Cuthbertson said the building's faults were evident the moment the ambulance company set up shop there in 2001. "Since day one we've been sending the town notes back and forth about what needs to be corrected," he said. "Nothing so far has been fixed."

Brookhaven Supervisor Brian Foley met last week with officials from all three companies and pledged to help. The town board has released $200,000 to fix the Mount Sinai building. Foley said he expects the same amounts to be given to Medford and East Moriches by July 25.

"It's just another example of the problems that we've inherited, and we intend to move quickly to correct it," Foley said, adding that the town also would rectify any of the six other ambulance buildings that lack certificates of occupancy.

Until then, Brookhaven officials said the town's need for emergency medical protection trumps building codes and the ambulance companies should not fear eviction or code-violation tickets.

"That would be tantamount to the town issuing a ticket to itself," said Joseph Sauerwein, commissioner of building and fire prevention. "Who would prosecute us, and who would defend us?"

Licenses for occupancy

A certificate of occupancy, or C.O., is a bit like a driver's license for your house. The document, issued by a municipality, shows that a private or commercial building meets all code requirements and can be used and occupied legally.

Since 1984, C.O.s have been mandatory for government buildings constructed in New York State, Brookhaven officials said. Officials said a private citizen occupying a building without a C.O. can be issued an appearance ticket for violating codes, fined or - in extreme cases - evicted by a judge.