Legislation looks to reform the Department of Buildings in favor of tenants.
City officials and tenants gathered at City Hall to reveal the results of a survey highlighting harassment of tenants through negligent construction.
15 percent of those surveyed said they couldn't access fire escapes during construction. 87 percent claimed there was excessive dust in their buildings.
The report coincides with a new package of Department of Buildings reforms aiming to help frustrated tenants.
"We had five months of no cooking gas," said one tenant at the rally. "We had to go to court to get our gas turned on again."
"They were keeping the door open," said another. "There was no barriers. There was no protection being done, no adequate safeguards, and so all sorts of debris from the construction and demolition were getting on the floor."
"Many tenants right now are being harassed by their landlords through illegal constructions in the building, so we want to make sure that we can change that condition," said City Councilwoman Margaret Chin of Manhattan.
The legislation seeks to create an enforcement arm of the DOB to quickly respond to violations and a list of contractors found guilty of working without a permit.