Great Neck permit amnesty program gives extensions to 270 property owners

The Village of Great Neck has granted extensions to more than 270 property owners whose permits lapsed before they could legalize construction performed on their buildings.

The backlog accumulated during the pandemic, village officials said.

The village's amnesty program, launched in late 2024 for residential and commercial properties, will allow property owners to schedule final inspections with the building department and obtain certificates of completion.

"The problem is unfortunately a lot of these certificates were not sought after and were obviously not given," Mayor Pedram Bral said. "Now, they are going through the entire paperwork from a few years ago and trying to bring these to completion in order to legalize these dwellings."

Property owners in Great Neck are allowed 12 months to complete a project. People can apply for extensions of up to 12 months, but if the work is still not complete, their permits lapse.

'Challenges with staffing'

Bral said the backlog dates back to the pandemic in 2020, when homeowners were wary of "people coming into their homes." 

Abraham Cohan, the village clerk, also attributed it to "challenges with staffing." The department currently employs two inspectors and is looking to hire a third.

The amnesty program was launched after some residents complained to the village that they were having problems selling their homes, Bral said.

"The building department realized that apparently there are a lot of these still hanging around, and … not done," Bral said. "They went and started actively looking at all these permits."

The extensions are granted during village board meetings on a rolling basis. During the Feb. 17 meeting, the owners of 17 residential and commercial properties were given amnesty, for everything from fences to generators to roof replacements.

There are about 100 more expired permits the department is looking to close, Cohan said.

The village collects anywhere from $50 to $200 for the certificates.

More homeowners are opting to renovate their homes instead of purchasing new ones, said Mike Florio, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute, citing higher interest rates than during the pandemic. The permit issue has become a "much bigger problem," he said.

"There's a lot of volume coming through," Florio said. "Someone wants to do their pool, or their deck, or whatever, all these things require permits. And the towns and the villages can't keep up with the volume. They don't have the staffing in place to do it."

Florio said there also has been a rise in homeowners turning to unlicensed contractors who are willing to perform jobs for less money but who don't obtain proper permits.

A focus in North Hempstead, too

North Hempstead's building department also has taken steps to assist property owners secure permits. Last year, the town enabled homeowners who had obtained certificates of occupancy issued "in error" stemming from an early 2000s scandal to secure permits on a "limited basis." Those homeowners had been on the hook for thousands of dollars in permit fees. 

Florio said the reforms in North Hempstead and Great Neck are a positive, but that substantive improvement only will come from streamlining the permitting process. Florio credited North Hempstead's recent shift to the cloud-based OpenGov for building department filing and tracking.

"You can actually see them tracked, so you know it's been received, it's been reviewed," Florio said of permits filed in digital portals. "You can do everything in this portal. We've seen that municipalities that have adopted this have cut back on their lead times for approvals."

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.