6010 Bay Parkway. Image: Mary Gillen.

Residents and elected officials opposed application to reduce parking requirements for Bay Parkway medical facility. In 2011, the Marcal Group began developing an as-ofright mixed-use medical facility at 6010 Bay Parkway in the Mapleton section of Brooklyn. Marcal later sought Buildings’ approval for a revised project reflecting a 93,920 sq.ft., nine-story medical facility/ commercial building with a total of 120 off-street parking spaces. Buildings rejected the application because a building that size would require at least 235 parking spaces. Marcal applied for a BSA special permit allowing an ambulatory diagnostic or treatment facility to reduce of its off-street parking requirements from one space per 400 sq.ft. to one space per 800 square feet.

Brooklyn Community Board 12, local Council Member David G. Greenfield, Assembly Member William Colton, and community groups opposed the application. At BSA, opponents testified that Marcal should provide the full complement of parking because there was already a high demand for parking in the area due to three nearby schools and a large house of worship.  (read more…)

Developers had begun but not completed foundations when the Council approved rezoning proposal. On June 24, 2011, the owner of a corner lot at 64-01 Woodside Avenue in Woodside, Queens obtained a foundation permit to begin construction on a proposed seven-story, 24,022 sq.ft. building with 27 apartments. On July 26, 2011, the owner of two lots at 69- 17 and 69-19 38th Avenue in Woodside obtained building permits to build two four-story buildings with a combined eight apartments.   (read more…)

Buildings had determined that legal non-conforming commercial use was discontinued for one condo despite presence of two other nonconforming businesses in building. The owner of a vacant commercial unit in the ground floor of a residential condominium at 25 Central Park West in Manhattan sought to occupy the space with an eating and drinking establishment. The building includes two other ground floor commercial condos. The vacant condo faces West 62nd Street and was occupied by a Gristedes supermarket from the 1950s until 2007. The other two condos face West 63rd Street and have been occupied by a drug store and a dry cleaners for several decades. The portion of the building with the commercial condos is located in an R10A zoning district and all three uses operated as legal non-conforming Use Group 6 commercial uses.  (read more…)

Community group argued that Buildings should require mosque to provide off-street parking. In November 2010, Buildings issued a permit to Allowey Ahmed to develop a three-story mosque at 2812 Voorhies Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. The mosque would include a 138-person prayer room on the first floor and a 61-person secondary prayer room on the second floor with interior windows overlooking the main prayer room. The plans did not include off-street parking spaces because the mosque qualified for a parking waiver. Only a house of worship’s largest room of assembly is considered when determining required off-street parking, and because the required parking for a 138-person room in an R4 zoning district was below ten spaces, the mosque was allowed to waive all parking.

Bay People Inc., a neighborhood group opposed to the mosque, challenged the building permit. Bay People claimed that because the secondary prayer room could view the main prayer room during services, the rooms should be considered as a single prayer room when calculating parking requirements. Therefore, Buildings should have required the mosque to provide thirteen parking spaces. Bay People argued that separating the main and secondary prayer rooms was a subterfuge to avoid parking requirements, and that the mosque could remove the secondary room’s non-load bearing wall at a later date without public review. According to Bay People, this would set a precedent for other houses of worship to follow to avoid providing off-street parking.  (read more…)

Developer affected by rezoning claimed substantial work. In early 2010, Scott Minuta obtained a permit to demolish two low-rise buildings at 35-16 Astoria Boulevard in Astoria, Queens. On May 10, 2010, Minuta obtained a building permit to develop a six-story mixed-use building on the site. Two weeks later the City Council approved the 238-block Astoria Rezoning Plan, which replaced the site’s R6 zoning with an R6B district. 7 CityLand 71 (June 15, 2010). The rezoning rendered Minuta’s 11,798 sq.ft. project out of compliance with the new district’s maximum height and floor area regulations. Because Minuta had not completed the building’s foundation by the rezoning’s enactment date, Buildings issued a stop work order.

Minuta sought BSA approval to complete construction. At BSA, Minuta claimed to have excavated 85 percent of the site and poured 35 percent of the concrete needed for the building’s foundation. Minuta also claimed to have already spent $228,692 of the project’s total $1,686,550 budget. Further, Minuta reclaimed that a complying project would result in a building with 43 percent less floor area and lead to an estimated loss of nearly $2.5 million.

BSA granted Minuta a two-year extension to complete construction. BSA found that Minuta had performed substantial work on the project, made significant expenditures, and would suffer a serious economic loss if forced to proceed under the current zoning.

BSA: 35-16 Astoria Boulevard, Queens (77-11-A) (Sept. 13, 2011) (Jessica Loeser, for Minuta).