Under threat of funding loss, Landmarks gives approval for elevator in Grant’s Tomb Pavilion. The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the design for an elevator installation at Grant’s Tomb Pavilion, a City individual landmark. The National Park Service sought a certificate of appropriateness for the addition of a glass-walled elevator on the pavilion’s north side. The tomb, including the pavilion, is currently one of the few federal landmarks without restrooms or a visitor center. The elevator, part of an extensive renovation to the deteriorating landmark, was the only work that required a Landmarks hearing. The remainder of the improvements, including stone replacement and structural repair, would be approved at staff level and would not require a full hearing by Landmarks.

At Landmarks’ first hearing on the application on September 14, 2004, the Park Service told the Commissioners that their approval was required by September 26, 2004, or the federal government would redirect the federal funds for all of the pavilion’s renovation work. Members of the Historic Districts Council, Community Board 9 and other preservationists objected to the design and proposed a plan for ramp-access. All of the speakers voiced objection to the acutely tight time frame given by the Park Service for Landmarks’ consideration and stressed that the Park Service had already undergone a related one-year long ULURP process for the pavilion work. That process began in February 2003, ending with the City Council’s August 12, 2004 approval. The speakers argued that the Landmarks application could have been filed in concert with the ULURP action to allow a time frame of up to one year for Landmarks’ review.

Comedy club to move into converted slaughterhouse. The Board of Standards & Appeals approved a use variance application allowing a comedy club to move into 351 West 14th Street at the intersection of Hudson Street in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Currently, a four-story, 24- unit apartment building with vacant street retail space occupies the site. The comedy club will move into the vacant 7,915-square-foot retail space and increase its mezzanine by 1,345 sq.ft.

The project site, a lot of 206 feet in depth, is split between two different zoning districts, one residential and one commercial. The proposed comedy club (an eating and drinking establishment) could locate legally in the front 103 feet of the building, which is commercially zoned, but would be an illegal use in the rear 47 ft. of the building, zoned R8B, hence the need for the variance.

Variances will allow full-service early childhood/daycare center, teen lounge, senior adult center, gyms and additional facilities. In 1978, the Board of Standards & Appeals granted variances to the Sephardic Community Center to allow community facility use in an R5 zoning district. The Center operates a 3-story, 42,495-square-foot space where it offers educational, athletic, and counseling services to the Orthodox Jewish Community and area residents. The location, 1901 Ocean Parkway, is in a primarily residential neighborhood of two and three-story dwellings.

In 1989 and 2000, the Center received two additional variances permitting further expansion on two lots, but the expansion did not occur. Subsequently, the Center received a $250,000 federal appropriation, shepherded by Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hilary Rodham Clinton, for its expansion and subsequently acquired two additional contiguous lots.

Project includes affordable housing and commercial development. Greater Allen Cathedral of New York and Allen AME Housing Corporation sought to construct a mixed-use project with affordable housing at 110-42 Merrick Boulevard directly across from the existing Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens. The proposed four-story development would include 54-units of affordable housing, ground floor commercial space, a community facility, and 53 parking spaces on a project site of 11 lots. Eight vacant commercial and residential buildings would be demolished to make way for the new building. The sites are currently zoned R3-2/C1-2, but the Planning Department has proposed to rezone the sites to R6A in 2005, as part of a comprehensive rezoning plan for Jamaica.

The Cathedral sought variances for the height, yard, setback, floor area, parking, loading, open space, and the number of residential units in the proposed development. In its application, the Cathedral noted that the Department of City Planning’s proposed zoning would permit this development as-of- right and claimed that funding constraints made waiting until the 2005 rezoning prohibitive.

Group claimed shelter violated use limitations. A community group appealed the City’s Department of Buildings’ issuance of a permit allowing alterations to a Brooklyn building to accommodate a domestic violence shelter. Prior to the appeal and after the issuance of the permit, several parties, including the community group, sought an injunction in state court to prevent the shelter from occupying the building and from performing the permitted work. The court dismissed the complaint, finding that the parties failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Thereafter the group filed an appeal with the Board of Standards and Appeals.

The community group argued that the shelter would exceed the capacity limit of the certificate of occupancy, and further that the proposal of a shelter would violate use provisions of the zoning resolution because the building should have been classified as a “transient hotel”.

Commission approves iconic design for 518-foot mixed-use development in Harlem. On September 8, 2004, the City Planning Commission approved a 493,646-square-foot mixed-use development containing 230 hotel rooms, 100 residential units, office space, retail space, and a 369-space public parking garage. To achieve the size and design, the developer, 1800 Park Avenue LLC, sought a rezoning of the project site to allow the hotel and an increased floor area as well as two special permits to allow the parking garage and modify height and setback. Marriott International would lease the hotel component.

The project site, on the west side of Park Avenue at East 125th Street, is at a vital axis point of the Central and East Harlem neighborhoods and is immediately adjacent to the MTA MetroNorth 125th Street station. The area is primarily residential with mostly four to six-story residential buildings. The tallest building is 33-stories, located at 3rd Avenue and 123rd Street.