Construction on a steel building in Poughkeepsie, New York has come to a halt.

The status of code compliance in the Luckey Platt building on Main Street was at the center of discussion during Monday evening’s city common council session, as Councilman Erik Haight said code violations remain and work should not be allowed to resume.

Haight pointed to a May 15 letter from a state code compliance official who said the only permit issued by the city has been for structural, general steel building work; that work, based on inspection of a third-party inspection agency, does not meet the requirement of code. Any other work since then “is certainly in violation” of both state and city regulations that require building permits, Mark Anderson wrote in his letter to the city’s building inspector.

City attorney Stephen Wing told council members that all that is needed to resume work on the planned metal building is documentation.

But Haight is not so sure.

“My hope is that Mr. Wing is correct, that all this is, is a documentation issue and that they do get the necessary documents to us as soon as possible,” he said. “It does concern me that the developer has violated the stop work order in the past and that all this development has occurred; $10-$20 million of capital has gone into this building by the developer and there is no third party inspection that the structure itself is even safe to be in.”

Mayor Nancy Cozean said the situation is being handled “very judiciously” by the appropriate city officials. “The fire chief and the building inspector are both capable and efficient members of the city,” she said. “The city is very interested in having a safe project, one that we will all benefit from and so, we’re very hopeful that it will all be resolved in the near future.”

In the meantime, the stop work order remains in effect. Developer ALMA Realty Corp. may not do any more work on the commercial metal building until this is rectified.