The New York City Council approved new fire safety legislation Thursday to address some of the shortcomings that contributed to the January fire at the Twin Parks North West building in the Bronx. Seventeen New Yorkers died in the blaze.

Bronx Councilmember Oswald Feliz, whose district includes the apartment complex, joined NY1 Saturday morning to discuss the legislation he sponsored and what he thinks the city should do to prevent tragedies in the future.

“Fire safety continues to be a challenge for the entire city of New York,” Feliz said. “Especially for the borough of the Bronx, and that has been a problem for many years and decades.”

“We have to tackle all the causes related to fire, but at the same time, we need to make sure that families have the tools so that if there is a fire, they have the tools to safely escape,” Feliz added.

The new laws require the city to manually reinspect buildings cited for a self-closing door violation and mandate landlords to address the violation within two weeks, as opposed to the current 21-day standard. Landlords will also no longer be able to certify the door repairs without approval from a city inspector.

“We’re creating a very strict system of enforcement of our housing laws,” said Feliz, a former housing attorney.

The bills are awaiting a signature from Mayor Eric Adams.

Feliz, who chairs a Council subcommittee on fire prevention formed in the aftermath of the Twin Parks fire, said the Council is working with the city to hire more inspectors to uphold the new regulations.

The first-term Council member also said he will work with the city on fire safety PSAs and educational campaigns to teach tenants the steps they should take in event of a fire, including ensuring doors are closed behind them to prevent the spread of flames and smoke.

Despite the fact that all the doors in the Twin Parks complex are supposed to be self-closing, the door for the apartment where the fire started did not close in January, FDNY officials said at the time.

But the actual cause of the fire, a malfunctioning space heater, needs to be addressed as well, Feliz said. Another bill in the package of legislation would ban space heaters in New York City that do not have certain safety features, including automatic shutoffs when the devices overheat or tip over.