Sadly, when Schundler was mayor, he laid off housing inspectors. The reasoning being - the developers would inspect themselves. I had jury duty on a faulty elevator on the waterfront complex a while back. It is scary to think government is lax in this area.

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LOL so true. My brother is guilty of this, he is living in a building like this with a heated pool, and a few more lame ammineites in Hoboken and its pretty much made out of reycled news paper IMO

Sure, the builders and municipalities have a responsibility, but individuals do, too - they could educate themselves about the construction of a building they're considering. It's not rocket science, it's some basic questions. Don't rent a place just because it has a heated pool.

The problem isn't so much new construction as a building code that hasn't kept up. NJ.com has a slideshow on its home page. If you look at the photos, it's obvious that the fire spread quickly along the roofline. Reports this morning are that in addition to the lightweight wood frame construction, a common attic area with no firewalls doomed the buildings. At the press conference this morning, the fire chief said the building did comply with the state code and sprinklers were working when fire fighters arrived on the scene. When he was asked whether the fire code should be changed, you could tell he had an opinion, but the mayor cut him off saying it wasn't his job to have an opinion.

Edgewater, like all the communities along the Hudson, had a massive building boom just before the recession. It is sobering to think of the potentially thousands of people who may be living in fire traps because of builders who minimally met the code and politicians who have no interest in making it more expensive for developers to build.

Btw, Avalon is a publicly traded corporation (NYSE: AVB). It would be interesting to see if the stock takes a hit this morning. They're damn lucky no one was killed.

I'm hoping everyone had renter's insurance; I feel so badly for the 1000+ people who are homeless/lost everything.

I'm with you. The building I live in isn't the nicest/newest place in town, but it's built like a nuclear bunker. I've driven past that Edgewater complex and thought that exactly this could happen. Life lesson: Stay away from wood construction in multi-family housing.

All that said, I feel terrible for those people.

This is one reason I hate new construction, a friend of mine house got broken into in Atlanta and they did not come through the windows are doors, they came through the side of the house which was thin, badly constructed walls. New Construction usually sucks.

Wasn't this the same complex that was completely destroyed by fire while it was still under construction? If so, that was also a raging inferno.

It does make you wonder why building codes allowed wood frame for such a densely populated building/complex. I've noticed during construction that many of the lower-rise buildings in Liberty Harbor are built of wood frame with an outer brick shell. Ditto with those newer condos over on Wayne & Barrow.

This is why I refuse to live in wood frame structures. Hope nobody was hurt.

A firefighter said that it is lightweight wood construction, it burns very quick, and collapses extremely fast.

http://pix11.com/2015/01/21/5-alarm-f ... gh-nj-apartment-building/

Is it under control now? Looks really bad...

did the building not have fire sprinklers? isn't it required for new new multi family construction

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No - the Avalon in the fire is in Bergen County in Edgewater - across from the Trader Joe's, just past Target. It's off of River Road - but opposite the street side of the Hudson River.

Bull's Ferry is in Hudson County - Guttenberg to be precise.

This is really an awful fire - 400 rental residents and it looks like the entire complex is gone. A comment on NJ.com indicated a resident was interviewed by one of the news outlets and said fire alarms were sounding since 2:30pm but fire departments didn't respond until 4:30pm. Jeez.

The complex burned down in 2000 while under construction, too.

I used to live at Avalon Cove. Light structure similar to the one there - I suspect that is (was ;-( the complex by Bull Ferry.
They will have to inspect all the Avalon buildings if similar including sprinklers..

I wonder if Avalon Cove in Newport is built the same way.

I lived in two places in Jersey City that have sprinklers. Don't know if Bergen County requires sprinklers in new construction.

http://7online.com/news/fire-raging-o ... trol-in-edgewater/485292/


This article mentioned sprinklers:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/5-ala ... dreds-evacuated-1.1231207

Scary live footage on News 12 Nj - 5 alarm fire at the Avalon at Edgewater apartment complex. Apparently no one is missing or hurt at this time.