Staten Island: wall built, deck ripped out under stop-work order

Inspectors went back to a one-family lot at 7 Rockville Avenue on Staten Island on October 26 and found the site had kept moving under an active Department of Buildings stop-work order. A rear-yard masonry block wall, about 6 feet high, had gone up. A second-floor rear metal deck and its door were gone, and the surface where they had been was sealed over.

The Environmental Control Board cited the property’s respondent, Elvahvah Shafik, under ECB number 39209375R for working in defiance of the stop-work order. The $10,000 penalty is assessed and unpaid, and a hearing is set for January 6, 2027.

Why it matters

A stop-work order freezes a site until DOB clears a safety or permit problem. Building anyway, and removing an existing structure rather than only adding one, is what moves a case from a paperwork lapse to active defiance in the city’s eyes. For a buyer or lender looking at a one- or two-family lot anywhere in the five boroughs, an open stop-work order with a logged defiance violation is a flag that any work done on the property since the order issued may need to be undone, re-permitted, or inspected again before a certificate of occupancy or sale can close cleanly.

The numbers

• $10,000 penalty assessed, $0 paid, full balance outstanding
• 6 feet, approximate height of the new rear-yard masonry wall observed
• January 6, 2027, the scheduled ECB hearing date

What’s next

The violation is active and the hearing has not happened, so the $10,000 penalty is not final and the underlying construction plans are not confirmed in the public record. What is documented is the physical change DOB found on an unannounced return visit: a new wall up, a deck down, and the gap patched over while the stop-work order was supposed to be in force. More Staten Island DOB and ECB coverage is tracked on the New York market hub.