County: Sandy victims are not forgotten

State will extend home elevation deadlines after public outcry

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Nassau County Legislator Steve Rhoads embraced Freeporter Eva Rowan, whose home was substantially damaged in Hurricane Sandy and who is now struggling to rebuild and elevate her house.
Nassau County Legislator Steve Rhoads embraced Freeporter Eva Rowan, whose home was substantially damaged in Hurricane Sandy and who is now struggling to rebuild and elevate her house.
Nadya Nataly/Herald Leader

Brandishing a yellow picket sign, Freeporter Eva Rowan wiped away tears as she spoke. Eighteen months have passed since she hired Fred Gutterman, the owner of JBJ General Contracting, to elevate and renovate her Branch Avenue home, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. She paid Gutterman $145,000 to do the job, but it remains stalled, and the contractor is facing a litany of complaints for unfinished work.

Rowan spoke at a news conference in Freeport last Friday, organized by Nassau County Legislator Steve Rhoads, a Republican from Bellmore. Joining them were residents of Long Beach, Seaford and Massapequa, who came to protest a June 1 deadline imposed by NY Rising to complete elevation work on their homes, or they might be forced from the program.

Only hours after that news conference, NY Rising officials announced that they would extend the June 1 deadline to Jan. 1, 2019. The decision affects at least a couple of hundred people in the optional and mandatory elevation programs. Homeowners whose houses were “substantially damaged” in Sandy were required to raise their homes. Otherwise, homeowners could opt into the program.

Rowan estimated that finishing the elevation job on her home would cost close to $100,000 — money that she doesn’t have after paying Gutterman so much. As is the case with dozens of South Shore residents, she is desperate to return to her home with her family. The situation has left her family physically and emotionally drained. In fact, her husband was so stressed by it that he suffered a heart attack that required five stents to repair, she said. Her youngest son, 22, suffers from Noonan syndrome, which causes heart defects and bleeding. He asks daily when the family will be able to go home.

Homeowners held signs at the news conference that read “Stressed Out,” “No Way Home” and “Need More Time.”

Emotions were running high at the protest. Homeowners consoled one another as they shared their concerns and issues with Rhoads, who walked through the crowd, answering questions.

“There is no way that the 900 families who have to have their homes lifted in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and the 1,000 families in the City of New York, are ever going to get that done in those time frames,” Rhoads said, referring to the June 1 home-elevation deadline.

Rhoads also stressed that homeowners were behind schedule for circumstances beyond their control, including:

• Potential contractor fraud.

• Delays in the building permit process.

• The volume of paperwork required by NY Rising.

The state must account for all three factors when making determinations about who will stay and who will be removed from the NY Rising program, Rhoads said. He and County Legislator Denise Ford, a Republican from Long Beach, pleaded with the state to step in and extend the deadlines.

In Freeport, Lily Gonzalez and her family said she could have been pushed out of the program if the deadline had not been extended. A letter on the NY Rising website, dated Nov. 16, 2017, stated that homeowners must meet certain milestones in the process of elevating and rebuilding their homes to keep their state funding.

Gonzalez, like Rowan, hired Gutterman more than a year ago to start the mandatory elevation of her home on Nassau Avenue, but $70,000 later, the house still has not been raised.

Gonzalez and Rowan are not alone, according to Rhoads. He said there are more than 100 reported cases of Sandy-related contractor fraud in Nassau County.

“I don’t think that, five and half years ago, after Superstorm Sandy, we thought we’d all be standing here today in the situation that we’re in,” Rhoads said. Nassau County officials would like “people that are dealing with these issues to know that, even though it seems some may have forgotten, we have not forgotten.”

The news conference followed a recent Village Hall meeting in Freeport at which local residents decried the alleged contractor fraud. In particular, they spoke of JBJ General Contracting, which Nassau County Department of Consumer Affairs officials said had been hit with 38 complaints, four in 2017 and 34 in 2018. Although village officials, including Mayor Robert Kennedy, did not attend the news conference, they contacted NY Rising and requested extensions for homeowners who were struggling to meet deadlines while dealing with contractors they described as fraudulent. The village has also filed a criminal complaint against Gutterman and his construction company for allegedly filing a false document with the village. According to Freeport officials, Gutterman also filed a different company’s insurance information with the village.

Kennedy said that the village would continue to amend or waive permit fees for residents dealing with Gutterman. Currently in Freeport there are 89 applicants waiting to secure building permits or start construction, according to Kennedy. Gutterman declined to comment for this story.