Variance for 6-story project in place of sliver building

Developer sought variance after Buildings revoked permit for twelvestory project. Wai Sun Realty obtained a permit to build a twelvestory, mixed-use building on a narrow through-block lot at 183 East Broadway in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The bottleneck-shaped lot has approximately 26 feet of frontage along East Broadway and 44 feet of frontage along Henry Street. The project site is zoned R7-2 with a partial C1-5 commercial overlay.

Wai Sun demolished a five-story building to … <Read More>


Central Park West synagogue variance upheld

Court rejected neighbors’ article 78 challenge to nine-story mixed-use building adjacent to landmarked synagogue. Congregation Shearith Israel applied to BSA for a variance to build a nine-story mixed-used building adjacent to its landmarked synagogue at the corner of West 70th Street and Central Park West in the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District. In addition to the synagogue, Shearith Israel owns a four-story parsonage house to the south of the synagogue along Central Park … <Read More>


Variances granted for HPD project in Borough Park

Image: Courtesy of Bricolage Designs
Image: Courtesy of Bricolage Designs

HPD claimed site’s former railway use complicated development of seventeen apartment buildings. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development selected the Southern Brooklyn Community Organization to build seventeen, four-story affordable housing buildings on two narrow City-owned parcels on 37th Street in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The block-long parcels are separated by 13th Avenue and were once occupied by the South Brooklyn Railroad and the elevated BMT … <Read More>


Variance granted for vacant SoHo building

Permissible uses for vacant two-story building on Crosby Street expanded to include restaurant and bar. The owner of a vacant two-story building at 54 Crosby Street in SoHo applied to BSA for a use variance to permit a bar or restaurant on the building’s ground floor. The 4,535 sq.ft. building sits on a lot twenty feet wide and is built to less than half of the available floor area. The building was formerly used as … <Read More>


Variances granted for three-building HPD project

Proposed ten-story building at 1176 East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx will be part of the Phipps Houses Group’s three-building project. Image: Courtesy Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP.

HPD claimed that abandoned railway complicated the development of two lots. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development applied for use variances in order to construct a three-building affordable housing development on two vacant through-block lots zoned for manufacturing in the East Tremont section of the … <Read More>


Variance of four-story residential building

Owner claimed that narrow lot could not accommodate a financially feasible manufacturing use. The owner of 133 Taaffe Place in Brooklyn applied to BSA for a use variance to construct a four-story, three-unit residential building on a vacant lot zoned for light manufacturing. The lot had once been occupied by a residential building that was demolished in 1994 due to fire damage. The owner’s initial proposal called for a 6,073 sq.ft. building with a fifteen- … <Read More>