Park West Village superblock on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. (808 Columbus Ave, center). Image Credit: Google Maps.
Appellate Division finds that Buildings improperly issued construction permit for nursing home after misinterpreting the zoning resolution. Park West Village is a complex located on a superblock bounded by West 100th Street to the north, West 97th Street to the south, Columbus Avenue to the east, and Amsterdam Avenue to the west on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The complex was built in the 1950s and 1960s as part of a federally subsidized middle-income urban renewal project, and includes residential buildings, a parking lot, a school, a church, a public library, a health center, and commercial buildings. Three original 16-story residential buildings remain on the eastern portion of the superblock at 784, 788, and 792 Columbus Avenue. The Park West Village buildings all exist on the same zoning lot. (more…)
Image credit: Department of Buildings.
Owner sought to install billboard capable of running 54 advertisements. Baychester Retail III LLC filed applications to install an LED billboard capable of displaying 54 video screen advertisements on a commercial property located near Co-op City, in the Baychester section neighborhood of the Bronx near the New England Thruway. Buildings denied the applications. (more…)
Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia at the CityLaw Breakfast on October 5, 2018. Image credit: CityLaw.
Sanitation determined polystyrene foam products were unrecyclable. Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia’s decision that expanded polystyrene cannot be recycled has been upheld by the Appellate Division. The decision paves the way for the City to ban the use of expanded polystyrene single service articles. (more…)
132 East 45th Street in Manhattan. Image credit: CityLaw.
Tenants rented apartments for transient use without owner’s knowledge. Pamela Equities Corp. owns and operates a building with 94 apartments located at 132 East 45th Street, Manhattan. On October 23, 2014, the Department of Buildings served Pamela Equities with a notice of violation for illegal conversion of apartments 4G and 9C from permanent residences to transient use. Following a hearing, the Environmental Control Board imposed a civil penalty of $5,800 and an additional discretionary civil penalty of $45,000 against Pamela Equities. (more…)
Broadway Triangle. Image credit: Google Maps.
Local residents and community activists brought an action to stop a rezoning that would encourage gentrification and racial disparity. Churches United for Fair Housing, along with local residents and other local groups, brought an action against the City in the Supreme Court of New York County to stop the construction of a housing development in the Broadway Triangle section of Brooklyn. Churches United is a local grassroots organization that seeks to preserve communities by advocating for non-exclusive and affordable housing. Churches United claimed that rezoning the area without evaluating segregation would result in discrimination against people of color, and violate the Fair Housing Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. (more…)
