Owner argued that adjacent overbuilt buildings restricted the development of its lot. Lauto Group, LTD sought to construct an 11- story, 37,535-square-foot building at 48 Bond Street in NoHo, a vacant site used by Great Jones Lumber for parking and lumber storage for its Great Jones Street store. Lauto’s new building, a 129-foot tall structure with retail and residential units, required BSA approval to exceed limits on height, and to permit ground floor retail and residential units within a NoHo manufacturing zone.

Lauto argued that the narrowness of the lot and the surrounding overbuilt structures on Bond Street made as-of-right commercial buildings infeasible. Due to the narrow 53-foot lot, a commercial building built with a required rear yard would have small, unusable floor plates. Since the two 120-foot buildings on either side of the vacant site cover the full lot and exceed the height limit, Lauto claimed that even if a commercial building was constructed without rear yards, the space would have limited light and air, rendering it less usable.

BSA agreed that the adjacent buildings and the lot’s narrowness created a unique condition, but questioned Lauto’s feasibility studies. BSA asked Lauto to include the value of the adjacent lot containing Great Jones Lumber since the lots were merged into one in 1991. Lauto resubmitted studies, showing that even with the lot’s added value, code-compliant buildings were economically infeasible.

Following a height reduction from 129 to 120 feet, BSA approved, limiting the total number of residential units to 20 and prohibiting live music or entertainment uses.

BSA: 48 Bond Street (98-05-BZ) (Shelly Friedman, Friedman & Gotbaum, for Lauto). CITYADMIN