In December 2005, Mayor Bloomberg signed Local Law 99, the first significant step towards the City’s goal of replacing the current Building Code, unrevised since 1968, with a national model code. Local Law 99 selected the International Building Code as the City’s model code and directed the Department of Buildings with preparing, and presenting to the City Council, modifications to the IBC making it responsive to New York’s unique construction, density and safety issues. As … <Read More>
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Manhattan Borough President Stringer Looks to Initiate Land Use Policy and Community Board Reform
Since taking office in January 2006, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has set land use policy and community board reform as priorities.
Stringer hired Anthony Borelli as his Director of Land Use, Planning and Development. Before joining the Borough President’s office, Borelli studied urban planning at Columbia University and worked with the university’s Urban Technical Assistance Project, which provides urban planning consultation to distressed communities. Borelli then served as District Manager of Community Board 4 … <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>
Challenge to use variance moves forward
Neighborhood coalition challenged variance to developer of site adjacent to Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal. In late 2003, when 160 Imlay Street LLC received a use variance to convert a six-story industrial building in Red Hook, Brooklyn into a luxury condominium, the Red Hook-Gowanus Chamber of Commerce filed an article 78 petition challenging the variance. The Chamber, however, named only BSA in its petition and as a result the petition has been appealed all the way … <Read More>
TransGas Brooklyn power plant hits hurdle
Electric power plant proposed for site where City seeks to build 28-acre park as part of its Greenpoint- Williamsburg rezoning. On April 12, 2006, the Public Service Commission recommended denial of the second application of TransGas Energy Systems, LLC to construct an eight-acre electric power plant at 1 North 12th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on a site that the City plans to condemn for a new 28-acre waterfront park.
After it spent $1.5 million on … <Read More>
Landmarks refused to legalize home alteration
Owner demolished projecting bay and built sun deck. Without permits, George Aigen demolished a projecting bay on his home at 58 Midwood Street and built a deck in its place. Aigen’s house was built in 1898 and is part of a string of Romanesque Revival/neo-Renaissance style rowhouses within the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens Historic District.
After Landmarks issued a warning letter for the demolition, deck construction and additional demolition of a rear shed, Aigen applied to legalize … <Read More>