Language in City approval binds future owners. After foreclosure, the City sold 330 West 86 Street for $340,000 to the tenants under UDAAP, to allow an expedited sale. The deed required the tenants to remove all code violations. Instead, the tenants sold the property for between $1 to $2.25 million. The new owner planned to demolish the building and construct a 15-story residential building. The adjacent co-op sued to stop demolition. A lower court enjoined … <Read More>
Search Results for: City Council
Challenge to East 91st transfer station rebuffed
Community claimed the FEIS flawed, the project was a nuisance and a Bronx facility would be more economical. In June 2005, Sanitation obtained final City approval for construction of a marine transfer station on the site of an inactive waste transfer station at East 91st Street and the East River. The approval was part of a citywide proposal to make each borough responsible for the export of its own waste. Sanitation’s proposal to reactivate the … <Read More>
Condemnation challenge time barred
Owner must file four months from Council’s action; challenge cannot be raised as a defense. In September 2003, DEP started the process to condemn a 12,500- square-foot lot at 142 Grand Street in Manhattan as part of the City’s construction of the Third Water Tunnel. The largest capital project in the City’s history, the Third Water Tunnel construction will enable the City to close and repair the City’s two functioning water tunnels for the first … <Read More>
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>
Court affirms dismissal of spot zoning claim
Lower Manhattan property owner claimed it was singled-out by down-zoning. In 2003, the City Council approved a South Street Seaport down-zoning that reduced the permitted height and mass of future development in a 10-block area of Lower Manhattan. Peck Slip Associates LLC., the owner of a surface parking lot at 250 Water Street, sued the City and City Council, claiming that the down-zoning made development impossible. It further claimed that the 2003 downzoning was inconsistent … <Read More>
Bushwick condemnation approved
City sought to acquire West Bushwick properties in phases. In 2001, the West Bushwick Urban Renewal Plan was approved by the Planning Commission, the City Council and the Mayor. In April 2003 the City began condemnation proceedings for phase one, filing a petition to acquire one lot. In October of 2004, the City began phase two, filing to acquire 18 lots. Owners of the lots challenged the petition, claiming that the City failed to follow … <Read More>