Preferred developer list for FDNY inspections emerges amid FBI probe into Mayor Adams’ campaign: source

A list of real estate developers City Hall allegedly wanted to fast-track through the FDNY’s fire safety inspection process has emerged as part of the FBI investigation into donations to Mayor Adams’ 2021 campaign, the Daily News has learned

The list –– known as the “DMO list” because it fell under the purview of the Deputy Mayor of Operations –– “became a mechanism to press the FDNY to permit politically connected developers to cut the inspection line,” according to a lawsuit against the FDNY filed earlier this year by Fire Chief Joseph Jardin and other department brass. “Developers with access to City Hall could get their development projects onto the DMO list.”

The fire inspection process has come under scrutiny in the wake of disclosures about the approval of the Turkish consulate in 2021. Adams this week confirmed he asked former Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro to look into the status of building safety violations that were preventing the Turkish government from opening the consulate in Manhattan, though he said the outreach was part of his normal duties as an elected official.

Jardin, who said he felt pressured to greenlight the consulate’s opening, has been questioned by FBI investigators looking into allegations that the Turkish government funneled illegal foreign cash into the mayor’s campaign coffers in 2021, a source familiar with the investigation told the Daily News.

When interviewed by the FBI about the Turkish Consulate building, Jardin was also asked about the list, the source said.

According to sources and the lawsuit, as the fire department tried to prioritize a backlog of inspections as the COVID pandemic came to an end, the Mayor’s Office of Operations during the de Blasio administration gave the FDNY a list of real estate developers who should be bumped to the top of the list.

The Adams administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing as part of the federal investigation into his campaign. The feds have seized the mayor’s cellphones and raided the home of Adams’ top campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, as part of the probe.

With the backlog of building inspections mounting in 2021, a “cutting red tape” initiative was created under former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Deputy Mayor of Operations Laura Anglin to prioritize the workload. The initiative was initially designed to help small businesses desperately needing permits to open their doors, but the DMO list was added into the mix, the lawsuit alleges.

“Jardin and others learned that the DMO list—at the behest of the Real Estate Board of New York—was being used to fast-track inspections for ‘friends’ of City Hall,” the lawsuit reads. “These ‘friends’ were prominent and influential real estate developers.”

The Real Estate Board of New York flatly denied any involvement with the list.

“REBNY never asked the city to create the so-called DMO List,” spokesman Sam Spokony said. “It is widely understood that at the end of the de Blasio administration, the FDNY had a very lengthy response time for processing plans and inspecting buildings.

“When REBNY members face delays in the inspection process, it is common for them to request our assistance with city agencies,” Spokony said.

In 2021, as NYC was struggling to emerge from the effects of the COVID pandemic, the backlog for FDNY fire safety permits was so severe that REBNY and leaders of various chambers of commerce wrote a letter to then-Mayor de Blasio to put more money in the Bureau of Fire Prevention’s budget “for the purposes of dedicating more staff to fire alarm plan review and inspection.”

“The resource shortage, along with increased work, has resulted in wait times of between eight and twelve weeks for plans to be reviewed and similar timeframes for inspections to be conducted,” the letter read.

The allegations about the list becoming a means of providing preferential treatment to certain developers are contained in a sweeping ageism lawsuit against FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and the FDNY, claiming the new commissioner and her team targeted Jardin and others “because they were at or near the age of 60,” according to their lawsuit in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Jardin, 61, who was head of the Bureau of Fire Prevention at the time, also has claimed he was pressured to press for approval of an inspection at the new Turkish consulate building, even though the fire safety system wasn’t functioning, his lawyer Jim Walden told the News Thursday.

Jardin never approved the permit, but finally agreed to file a letter of non-objection regarding the alarm system, though his lawyer said he only did so because he was under duress. That letter allowed the Department of Buildings to give the property a temporary certificate of occupancy if the system was properly installed and tested.

Jardin felt his job was on the line if he didn’t do what City Hall wanted regarding the Turkish consulate.

“It was literally said, ‘If we don’t do this we’re going to be looking for new jobs,’” Walden said. “It was not subtle.”

Walden wouldn’t say who threatened Jardin’s job.

FDNY spokeswoman Amanda Farinacci said “there is nothing to suggest” that Kavanagh or the FDNY “was pressured to do anything improper.”

“This simply seems like an attempt by someone who is unsuccessfully suing the FDNY and Commissioner Kavanagh, and who has a financial interest in undermining the fire commissioner and smearing her good name,” Farinacci said.