Westchester repoorts jump in rental inspections; director proposes new inspection fees and one full-time hire

Aaron Flook, director of building, housing and code enforcement, told the Westchester Borough Smart Growth Committee on Sept. 10 that the department completed 233 rental inspections in August and is two months ahead of processing compared with last year. "We did 233 resident, rental inspections this month, which is the largest that we've done in quite a while," Flook said. Flook urged the committee to approve budget changes that would fund a third code enforcement officer and a part-time administrative position to keep up with the volume of rental properties and to reduce the department's backlog. He said the borough currently is staffing below pre-COVID levels: "From what I understand, I wasn't here at the time, but prior to COVID, there were 3 code enforcement officers in the department. Right now, we are doing approximate we're trying to get done in a year, 5,800, little little…