Hotel developer admits its foundation work damaged adjacent building. Developer D.A.B. Group LLC received a foundation permit on September 29, 2008 for its planned 16-story Lower East Side hotel at Rivington and Orchard Streets. Excavation work began one week after the City Planning Commission voted to downzone the area. D.A.B. then obtained a full building permit at 2:21 p.m. on the day that the City Council voted to approve the East Village/Lower East Side rezoning. The new zoning restricted new building heights to 80 ft., making the proposed hotel 111 ft. over the new height limit. Without the full foundation completed, Buildings issued a stop-work order.

Applying to BSA, D.A.B. argued that, despite having only 63 percent of the foundation complete, the work represented the most difficult and time-consuming portion of the construction. This included all 28 H-beams, 100 timber legs and all of the rebar and poured concrete needed to complete the elevator pit floors and walls. (more…)

104 Charlton Street, Lower Manhattan. Image Credit: GoogleMaps

The transferring property was granted a variance 15 years ago, but the development of the adjacent property had not been under the applicant’s control. On December 6, 2016, the Board of Standards and Appeals unanimously voted to grant 104 Charlton Street Condominium’s request to transfer unused development rights from the applicant’s property, located at 104 Charlton Street, to an adjacent property located at 108 Charlton Street in Manhattan’s Special Hudson Square District. Because the site from which the unused development rights would be transferred had previously received a variance, the development rights cannot be transferred without Board approval. (more…)

BSA found the requirement to move subway entrances uneconomic. Century 21 sought a variance to allow a 4,583 sq.ft. expansion on the second floor of its lower Manhattan store and a waiver from the requirement, triggered by the expansion, to relocate two subway entrances from the street to the store’s interior.

Century 21 occupies space in three contiguous buildings in lower Manhattan: the former East River Savings Bank located at 26 Cortlandt Street, a 33-story office tower at 22 Cortlandt, and a building at 10 Cortlandt. Customer circulation problems exist due to walls and fire stairs within the three buildings that cannot be changed. Its original plan for an as-of-right expansion within the 22 Cortlandt Street building failed when reasonable terms could not be reached with that building’s owner. (more…)

Variance will allow 11 new dwellings and ground floor commercial in a manufacturing zone. BSA approved a use variance, permitting a five-story residential development with ground floor commercial on an M1-1 zoned lot with unobstructed views of lower Manhattan at the corner of Columbia and Congress Streets in Brooklyn.

When the project site, two lots totaling 4,773 sq.ft., was purchased by the variance applicants, Isaac, Jacqueline, and Maurice Douek, it contained two vacant four -story residential buildings. Initially intending to rehabilitate the buildings, the applicants let both buildings sit vacant for several years. In 1992, after Buildings issued an unsafe determination, the buildings were demolished, the foundation walls retained, and the entire lot paved. (more…)

Robin Kramer testifies before the Board of Standards and Appeals. Image credit: BSA

Board recognized a vested right to continue construction.  On June 16, 2015 the Board of Standards and Appeals voted to extend a construction permit to the applicant, 180 Orchard LLC, for a twenty-four story mixed commercial- and community-use building at 180 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  The building will contain retail on the cellar and ground floors, community space on the mezzanine and second floors, and hotel use through the remaining floors.

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