Neighbor in fear of next-door home collapsing

Strong winds, possible design flaw may have caused house to lean; firefighters say structure is secure

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An elderly Long Beach woman said she fears that a structurally compromised house next door may come crashing down on her home of 60 years, and called on the city to tear down the structure nearly a week after it began leaning.

Long Beach firefighters and police rushed to the West End on March 2 when a new home being built at 815 W. Park. Ave., between New York Avenue and California Street, appeared at risk of collapsing and leaned dangerously close to 88-year-old Marie Febrizio’s house, which is now partly supporting the structure after emergency crews braced it with wooden beams to prevent it from falling. Support beams were attached to Febrizio’s roof and additional framing was assembled at the rear of the home.

“That house should come down,” Febrizio said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, where she was visibly upset. “It’s connected to my property. My husband would be turning over in his grave for the work we put into our house.”

The incident was reported just after noon last Thursday, when the frame of the three-story, roughly 36-foot-tall home shifted.

“We received telephone calls from numerous passersby about a house that was leaning too far toward another house,” Long Beach Fire Chief RJ Tuccillo told reporters at the scene. “As you can see, the house did shift.”

Emergency crews from around Nassau County responded to help firefighters secure the structure, which was still in the early stages of construction, including the county’s technical response team, on a day when wind gusts reached 50 mph in the area, according to the National Weather Service.

"There’s not much to it right now,” Tuccillo said of the structure last week. “It just has the steel framing and some sheathing, so there’s not too much weight on the house. It’s a brand new house from top to bottom that was built with metal studs instead of common wood, so we need to get it shored up and secure so we can get an engineer and the contractor in there to make a decision about whether to take the house down or see if the house can be repaired.”

Park Avenue, from Grand Boulevard to Arizona Avenue, was closed in both directions for hours until firefighters deemed the building safe. Firefighters were able to secure the home with wooden support beams, but they evacuated neighbors as a precaution.

Tuccillo and Fire Commissioner Scott Kemins said that the home is no longer in danger of falling.

“On the day of the incident, we were given a task of what we could do — we could either let it collapse, and probably cause more damage, or secure the house,” Kemins told the council. “Unfortunately, the only way to secure the house was to Mrs. Febrizio’s house.”

As a result, Kemins said that by law, the owner — who was slapped with several violations — has 10 days to address the issue, at which point the city could take legal action and order the “immediate removal” of the home.

“We’ve been in contact with the engineer on the project,” said Kemins, who is also the city’s building commissioner. “Unfortunately, the engineer and contractor are blaming each other for the failure. At the end of the day, I believe the house is going to come back down to the foundation. I want the house down more than anybody else; I’m just as frustrated. We’re hoping by the end of the week that the house will be down or we’ll have an answer.”

Kemins said that the property was previously home to a bungalow that was damaged in Hurricane Sandy. The property was acquired by New York Rising and sold at auction. The Zoning Board of Appeals granted the new property owner, Yoindra Ramnarayan, of Queens, a variance to build the new structure last year.

The home, about 20 feet wide and 100 feet long, conforms to new Federal Emergency Management Agency height requirements, though a number of neighbors questioned why the zoning board would approve a variance for a large dwelling on a relatively narrow lot. Tuccillo said the new home covers about 80 percent of the property. Ramnarayan did not immediately return a call for comment.

Kemins added that while the strong winds played a factor, there might have been an issue with the design of the home, which he said would likely have to be completely rebuilt.

“Obviously, the wind contributed to it, but there is some kind of design flaw to the construction,” he said.

Febrizio recalled being upset after she was evacuated.

“She’s absolutely shaken up,” said her daughter-in-law, Karen Febrizio. “We have a wonderful mail carrier who noticed that the house was leaning, and she immediately called my husband and then called 911.”

Though she returned home a few days later, Marie Febrizio said she was still on edge.

“Do any of you go to bed at night, all dressed up with your bags packed and your pocket book in your hand to run out the door because something might happen? That’s what I’ve been doing since last Thursday,” she told the council. “This is my home. They dug up my backyard to hold up a piece of garbage that should have been taken down that same day.”

Her son, Nick, also said he was eager to see the home come down.

“Right now, we’ve got a home next door to this very poorly designed construction which almost tipped over, and if wasn’t for the quick action of the city’s emergency responders, it could have collapsed right on her house,” he said. “There was just no way that house should be up after six days — it should have been taken down already, because it’s not structurally sound.”