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If you build it, the inspectors will come.

That’s the message that the Department of Buildings is taking to heart thanks to a $2.5 million hike in the agency’s 2007 fiscal year budget – which includes $250,000 for an initiative that provides night and weekend inspections.

The evening and weekend inspection pilot program is an integral part in a series of steps taken by the DOB to improve its image and ramp up its enforcement policy. Presentations by DOB officials outlining these programs are now being given at community board meetings throughout the five boroughs.

“It’s baby steps in the right direction,” said City Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside), chairman of the Zoning and Franchises Committee and a long-standing proponent of change at the DOB. “They clearly need to do more.”

DOB spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said that under the After-Hours/Weekend Inspection Program about 30 inspectors are routed in all five boroughs each weekend to respond to after-hours complaints. “

The Department has dedicated a team of inspectors who show up within hours of a complaint,” she said in an e-mail.

If builders are found working without a permit or a variance, work is stopped at the site and a violation is written.

The violations can result in penalties as high as $2,500 for the first offense and $10,000 for the second offense.

By statute, if an inspector shows up to investigate a complaint and cannot access the property in two consecutive visits, the complaint is considered closed. The pilot program allows for inspectors to visit homes at times when residents are more likely to be home to answer the door.

In a three-month test program last year, results were positive. From late May to late August the DOB issued 221 Work Without a Permit violations citywide with 60 issued in Queens; and a total of 396 Work Without a Variance violations were issued citywide, 96 in Queens. Thanks to the new funding secured through the City Council the program will continue this year.

With an emphasis on proactive enforcement and stronger penalties that carry weight, the DOB also teamed up with the Department of Finance to form the Stop Work Order Patrol. Dedicated only to Queens and Brooklyn at the moment, inspectors partner with DOF sheriffs to visit and inspect sites where Stop Work Orders have been issued and write violations if they witness builders working against the order.

As of February, the civil penalties associated with Work Without a Permit violations increased. For one- and two-family houses the penalty is now four times the amount of the permit filing fee, with the minimum increased to $500. For all other work performed without a permit the penalty is now 14 times the amount of the permit filing fee, with the minimum increased to $5,000.

Data recorded by the DOB from August 2006 to the present shows that from 1,732 inspections, 96 violations were issued for working against a stop work order.

Also in February Mayor Mike Bloomberg signed two bills to address professional engineers and registered architects who abuse their privilege to self-certify that plans they have prepared for construction projects comply with the Building Code and Zoning Resolution.

According to the DOB, $650,000 in funding allocated by the City Council has provided 10 new plan examiners for the Zoning Review Pilot Program, under which zoning reviews are performed for all professionally certified applications for new building and major alteration permits filed in all five boroughs.

“Recognizing the need to catch issues up front, the program allows Department staff to review commonly-abused zoning items early in the plan review process before permits are issued,” Lindquist said.

The DOB also aims to audit 20 percent of the professionally certified permits issued each year.