Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School was permitted to expand its campus to provide a middle school. Image credit: Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Columbia Grammar and Preparatory permitted to establish new building for a middle-school program over community opposition. On October 7, 2014 the Board of Standards and Appeals voted to grant a variance to Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School for the enlargement of an existing school building. The building is located at 5 West 93rd Street in Manhattan’s Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District, between Central Park West to the west and Columbus Avenue to the east. Columbia Prep serves students from pre-kindergarten through the twelfth grade grouped in two schools, Pre-K through six, and seven through twelve.

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Street view of 118-27 Farmers Boulevard. Image Credit: Google Maps

Board granted the variances despite divided community support. On September 23, 2014, the Board of Standards and Appeals voted to grant five variances to St. Albans Presbyterian Church for the construction of a five-story mixed-use facility at 118-27 Farmers Boulevard. The development site is located in St. Albans, Queens, and bounded by Farmers Boulevard to the west, 119th Avenue to the south, 189th Street to the east, and 118th Avenue to the north. The facility will feature two floors in the cellar for community space and five stories for residential space containing sixty-seven units of affordable housing, as well as seventeen parking spaces, and a thirty-five-foot perimeter wall.

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Photo of Congregation Ohel Chabad Lubavitch-owned property located at 226-10 Francis Lewis Boulevard, Queens. Image Courtesy of Abba Refson.

BSA approval contingent upon several conditions, and restrictions of the hours of operation and access to gravesites. The Congregation Ohel Chabad Lubavitch owns the property at 226-10 Francis Lewis Boulevard, Queens adjacent to the Montefiore Cemetery where the Lubavitch spiritual leader Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson and his predecessor Rebbe Yosef J. Schneerson are buried. Daily visitors numbering in the several hundreds use the property to access the graves of the Lubavitch leaders.  In 1994 the Congregation purchased the property which comprises five adjacent buildings used by the visitors as a synagogue sanctuary and 24-hour per day access point to the gravesite.

The Congregation applied to the Board of Standards and Appeals for a variance to allow it to legalize and enlarge a synagogue and accessory uses at the property, and to waive the FAR, lot coverage, yard, and parking requirements. The Congregation’s initial application proposed to merge the five homes and legalize the operation of the synagogue and visitor’s center, while also providing accessory uses to visitors including synagogue services, prayer space, and a Shabbos house with overnight transient sleeping accommodations. The Congregation also proposed to connect the cellar, first story, and second story of the five homes, thereby increasing the FAR and lot coverage, and decreasing rear and side yards and parking space requirements, contrary to the existing R2A zoning regulations. (more…)

Puglia By the Sea was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Image Credit: silive.com

BSA granted a use variance to demolish previous restaurant damaged by Hurricane Sandy and permit construction of a one-story restaurant and additional parking spaces. On June 24, 2014, the Board of Standards and Appeals granted a use variance to Puglia by the Sea, a restaurant, located at 750 Barclay Avenue in the Annadale section of Staten Island. BSA approved the application for Puglia to demolish the original restaurant, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy, and construct a new one-story restaurant with additional parking spaces. (more…)

Naming Carl Weisbrod CPC Chair was only one of many major land-use appointments by Mayor De Blasio. Image Credit: Mayor’s Office.

Mayor de Blasio has re-structured the City’s land use administrative hierarchy to further his affordable housing agenda. On July 22, 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio nominated Margery Perlmutter to serve as Chair of the Board of Standards and Appeals. This was the Mayor’s latest appointment  to City land-use positions, all of which will bear heavily on the Mayor’s expansive affordable housing agenda, a ten-year plan designed to preserve some 200,000 units of affordable housing. (more…)