HPD Proposes to Implement Extension of Existing 421-a Affordable Housing Tax Abatement Program

HPD brought charges of tenant harassment against an Aimco-owned building in the Upper West Side. Image credit: HPD

The “421-a Extended Affordability Program Rules” would provide a 10 to 15 year extension to eligible buildings enrolled in the program prior to its expiration. On March 14, 2016, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development proposed two agency rules to extend the 421-a real property tax exemption program for those who already had been benefiting from the program prior to its expiration in June 2015. The State authorized HPD to promulgate the new rules … <Read More>


Commission Approves Revised Plan for New Tower Integrated with Federal-Era Landmark House

Applicants altered design so that tower’s facade projections would less severely impose on airspace above historic house. On March 8, 2016 the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved an application by Trinity Place Holdings to develop a new tower adjoining, and internally connected with, the individually landmarked Robert and Anne Dickey House at 67 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan. On the tower’s south facade, cantilevered stepped projections would penetrate the airspace above the 1810 building. The project … <Read More>


Airbnb Opposition Makes for Strange Bedfellows

There are some things you can always count on here in New York: alternate side of the street parking, the subways always running (except when they’re not, like late nights and weekends), the Yankees making the playoffs (except when the Mets do) and landlords and tenants being diametrically opposed. Like Superman and Kryptonite, oil and water, landlords and tenants have always had one thing in common – a mutual distrust of one another.

That is … <Read More>


Hearing held on tower with stepped cantilevers to be projected over 1810 Federal townhouse

Mixed-use development would restore Federal-era building to tenement period, adaptively repurpose for use as part of a new public school. On February 16, 2016, Landmarks considered an application for alterations to, and new construction above, the individually landmarked Robert and Anne Dickey House at 67 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan. The work would be part of a mixed-use development by Trinity Place Holdings that would see the creation of a tower at the adjoining lot … <Read More>


Court Upholds Zoning Restriction On Peace Sign

Zoning resolution prohibited apartment dweller from placing illuminated “Peace” sign in 17th floor window. In 2010 Brigitte Vosse placed an illuminated “Peace” sign in the window of her seventeenth-floor condo in The Ansonia at 2109 Broadway in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  The Department of Buildings fined her $800 for violating a zoning ordinance restricting illuminated signs in her neighborhood at heights above forty feet.  Vosse argued that the City placed a content-based … <Read More>


Hope Knight Named as New City Planning Commissioner

Knight, president of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, fills vacancy on 13-member Commission.  On December 16, 2015 the City Council approved Hope Knight as the newest member of the City Planning Commission.  Ms. Knight was nominated by Mayor Bill de Blasio to fill the seat vacated by Bomee Jung when Ms. Jung resigned to take the position of Vice President of Energy and Sustainability with NYCHA.  Ms. Knight will serve out the remainder of … <Read More>