Billboard lessee claimed the Board denied its permit arbitrarily. OTR Media Group leased a billboard on the south wall of an eight-story building at the northeast corner of Tenth Avenue and West 40th Street in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. In 2012 the Department of Buildings refused OTR’s request for a permit to operate the billboard because it was within view of an arterial highway, the Lincoln Tunnel, in violation of the Zoning Resolution. … <Read More>
Search Results for: Zoning
Court Vacates BSA Denial of Advertising Sign Registration
Court ruled the signs were not under City jurisdiction. On March 26, 2012 the Department of Buildings issued Notice of Sign Registration Rejection letters denying registration for twenty-one advertising signs owned by CBS Outdoor Inc. The Department based its rejection on the signs being too close to an arterial highway, in violation of the City Zoning Resolution. On January 29, 2013 the Board of Standards and Appeals upheld the rejection. CBS Outdoor, joined by the … <Read More>
Appellate Court Upholds Decision In Favor Of Adult Entertainment Stores
Court found amendments expanding reach of the adult use zoning resolution to be unconstitutional. In 2002, For the People Theaters and JGJ Merchandise Corp. filed suit to declare the 2001 Amendments to City’s adult use zoning resolution unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment. The amendments broadened the resolution to cover any establishment regularly featuring live performances emphasizing specified anatomical areas or sexual activities and restricting or excluding minors. Prior to the 2001 Amendments, … <Read More>
Lawsuit Seeks Damages Over One Vanderbilt Agreement
Owner of Grand Central Terminal claims violation of property rights, seeks $1 billion in damages. On September 28, 2015, Andrew Penson—the owner of Grand Central Terminal in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan—initiated a lawsuit against New York City for allegedly unlawfully taking Grand Central’s air rights from him for the benefit of SL Green Realty Corporation without just compensation, which is a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The complaint … <Read More>
Appellate Division Upholds Sloan-Kettering, Hunter College Expansion
Court held City did not act arbitrarily; parkland-for-floor area was not illegal quid pro quo. On October 9, 2013, the City Council approved an application by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and The City University of New York/Hunter College for development of a former New York City Department of Sanitation garage. (See CityLand’s past coverage here.) Residents for Reasonable Development petitioned for injunctive and declarative relief, arguing the environmental impact statement failed to consider Hunter’s … <Read More>
Court dismisses challenge to Pierhouse development
Zoning restrictions were not violated. In 2006, Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation entered into a project plan for developing a hotel and residential complex at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The plan called for the development’s northern building to be limited to “approximately 100 feet”. Following Superstorm Sandy’s flooding of Brooklyn Bridge Park, the development was redesigned to move basement mechanical equipment to the rooftop, in compliance with new zoning changes. This increased the northern building’s height above … <Read More>