Nassau County Board of Assessors Chairman Harvey Levinson has called upon all fire departments and police precincts to utilize a standardized Emergency Response Report to notify the Department of Assessment of unsafe living conditions caused by the illegal conversion of single-family homes to boarding or rooming houses when answering calls for service. Levinson stated that once the egregious violations are confirmed, the illegal boarding or rooming houses will be reclassified from residential property to commercial property for taxation purposes. On average, the commercial property tax rate is two-and-a-half times higher than the residential rate.

"Earlier this year, I met with a number of fire chiefs and offered to create a uniformed emergency response report form that would be returned to the Department of Assessment to be used in conjunction with my reclassification initiative and then forwarded to the appropriate building department for further action," stated Levinson. "It is my hope that this form will provide the authoritative 'eye -witness' descriptions needed to facilitate swift remediation by the municipalities and courts."

In reviewing a number of police and fire department incident reports, Levinson said that he discovered illegal multi-family dwellings had a disproportionate and high number of calls for police and emergency services. For example, in a two-year period, one illegal boarding house in Roosevelt had 87 calls for service.

"Excessive calls for emergency services at these illegal boarding and rooming houses place an unnecessary strain on the limited financial and manpower resources of our fire and police departments," stated Levinson. "Not to mention the damages that may be encountered when fire responders attempt to navigate the temporary walls of sheetrock and blanket partitions that separate living quarters."

Levinson also stated that he would like to see all municipalities implement a 24-hour on-call service for building inspectors who could be called to the scene of a fire or police-related incident involving these dangerous "invisible hotels" within one hour or before the scene is released back to the property owner. "By having a building inspector on the scene at the time of a reported incident, the inspector would have his or her best opportunity to view any violations firsthand and issue summons while the fire or incident is being controlled by the emergency response team," he said.