Search Results for: Department of City Planning

Court reverses order compelling Commission vote

Staten Island landowners claimed delay prejudiced their development application. The three Putter brothers owned a six-acre tract of land in the West Brighton/New Brighton section of Staten Island. Their property was located within the Special Hillsides Preservation District, which requires landowners to obtain Planning Department permission to develop their property. In 1999, the brothers submitted an application to the Planning Department to develop their site with 60 affordable townhouses.

Over the next several years the … <Read More>

Church wins right to review use in industrial zone

Church converted warehouse within industrial area and held services. In 2002, Abundant Life Alliance Church of New York bought a condo warehouse unit located within the College Point II Urban Renewal Area in Queens to operate a church. At the time of purchase Abundant knew there were restrictions on the warehouse’s use: the urban renewal plan did not list churches as a permitted use, the deed contained a restrictive covenant that required Abundant to comply … <Read More>

Community Board members may vote on large area rezonings

Community Board members sought advice from Conflicts of Interest Board. Nine members of Community Board 7 in Queens sought an opinion from the Conflicts of Interest Board as to whether they could vote on the Planning Department’s 310-block rezoning proposal for Whitestone, Queens in light of their home ownership in the proposed rezoning area.

The Board advised that voting on rezoning proposals would not violate the Charter’s conflicts of interest rules as long as the … <Read More>

People v. Second Ave. Woodworking Corp.

Owner challenged the necessity of taking entire property. DEP applied to the Planning Commission to acquire a 12,500-squarefoot unimproved property used as a parking lot on Grand Street between Crosby and Lafayette Streets for the construction and maintenance of Shaft 30B of the Third Water Tunnel. After its construction, DEP proposed to use the lot as public open space. Following a public hearing, the Commission approved in April 2004.

In November 2004, the City filed … <Read More>

Sale of Two Columbus Circle gets go ahead

Environmental study ruled proper; Landmarks not obligated to hold public hearing. Two Columbus Circle, the white marble-clad, nine-story modernist building fronting Columbus Circle, was at the center of two suits filed against the City. The building, commissioned in 1964 by the A & P Supermarket heir Huntington Hartford for the Gallery of Modern Art, was donated to the City in 1980 after the Gallery closed. In 2003, the Planning Commission approved its sale from the … <Read More>

Sanitation garage construction wins court approval

Environmental study and site choice for Brooklyn garage upheld. The City filed a condemnation action in October 2003 for three lots comprising a 2.46-acre site bounded by Park, Nostrand and Flushing Avenues and Warsoff Place in Clinton Hill, to be used for the eventual construction of a new Sanitation truck storage garage to serve Brooklyn Community District 3.

The site had been subject to a June 2000 application by Sanitation and the Department of Citywide … <Read More>