Buildings only caught architect’s FAR miscalculation after six-story facility was completed. On May 9, 2012, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on the Silvercrest Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation’s special permit request to legalize a six-story, 66,000 sq.ft. senior housing facility built next door to its existing five-story, 130,000 sq.ft. nursing home in Briarwood, Queens. In an effort to expand its campus, Silvercrest built a new six-story, 81-bed senior housing facility at 86-19 144th Street. After completion, however, the Department of Buildings determined that Silvercrest had miscalculated the maximum floor area ratio (FAR) permitted under the R4-1 zoning district’s regulations. Community facilities within R4-1 districts are typically restricted to a FAR of 2.0. However, nursing homes and senior housing facilities within R4-1 districts are limited to a combined FAR of 0.75. As a result of Silvercrest’s error, the nursing home and senior housing facility had a combined FAR of 1.1.

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Owner of vacant residential lots stored vehicles and construction materials. A Department of Buildings inspector visited four R4-zoned residential lots located on 78th Street between Dumont and South Conduit Avenues in Lindenwood, Queens. The inspector, during three visits, observed stored on the site a large excavator and two commercial trucks, and construction tools and equipment, including a drilling machine, a generator, and large quantities of lumber and pipes. Subsequently, Buildings sought an order to seal the premises under the padlock law to halt an alleged public nuisance.

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Plan to allow public challenges of as-of- right permits effective July 13. After a public hearing, Buildings adopted a final rule for public challenges to zoning approvals that goes into effect on July 13, 2009.

Under the new development challenge process, architects and engineers applying for new building permits or alteration permits involving the exterior of existing buildings must submit a new zoning diagram, called a ZD1, to Buildings. The ZD1 will provide detailed project information, including to-scale drawings, use details, and the project’s position on the street. Buildings will post the diagrams on its website, triggering a public review period in which the public may contest zoning decisions. Buildings originally proposed a 30-day public challenge period, but after considering public comments, extended the period to 45 days. (read more…)

Tenant’s reliance on past front yard requirements tops Buildings’ new policy. Thomas E. Carroll applied to Buildings for demolition and construction permits to build a single-family home on his designated plot at 607 Bayside Drive in Breezy Point, Queens, a 403-acre private community owned by Breezy Point Cooperative. Carroll leased his plot from the Cooperative in 1960, the same year the Cooperative incorporated. Carroll’s plot, like other individual plots in the Cooperative, had been historically treated as a separate zoning lot by Buildings.

Buildings’ practice in Breezy Point was to measure a zoning lot’s front yard footage starting at the center line of an adjacent service road. Carroll’s front lot line was located on the center line of a service road adjacent to the plot. Though the service road was unmapped, it was open, used by residents and emergency vehicles, and accepted by Buildings as a functioning street. (read more…)

Church contracted with caterer to run year-round private catering affairs. The Third Church of Christ, Scientist, located on Park Avenue and 64th Street in Manhattan, was concerned with its dwindling membership and concomitant lack of funds. Its building required major capital repairs to bring it up to code. In an effort to avoid selling the building, the Church entered into a long-term lease agreement with Rose Group Park Avenue LLC. Under the terms of the agreement, Rose Group could hold catered events at the Church over a period of twenty years at any time unless it conflicted with the Church’s use. In exchange, Rose Group would invest millions in capital repairs and pay rent and maintenance costs.

Before any of the catering began, the Church sought permission from the City. The New York City Department of Buildings issued a pre-consideration determination allowing catered events provided that the social hall was used and operated exclusively by the Church for its members. The Church sought a modification, claiming that there would be limited periods when the Church was not used by its congregation and a professional caterer would run catered events. Buildings accepted the modification, noting that the catered events under contract with the Church complied as an accessory use. (read more…)

Trump SoHo wins another appeal. Image: Handel Architects.

Court finds that BSA’s decision to uphold DOB permits was supported by substantial evidence. The New York City Department of Buildings issued permits for a transient hotel at 246 Spring Street in Manhattan. Believing that the design amounted to an unpermitted residential building in an M1-6 zoning district, SoHo Alliance appealed DOB’s decision to BSA. BSA denied the appeal, 5 CityLand 74 (June 15, 2008), and SoHo Alliance filed an article 78 petition challenging BSA’s decision.

SoHo Alliance claimed that BSA had varied the terms of the Zoning Resolution so that the proposed development could be construed as a transient hotel. SoHo Alliance argued that, in order for a building to qualify as a transient hotel, the guestrooms would have to be rented on a daily basis; here, the hotel condominium offered private ownership and permitted a unit owner, or any other individual, to occupy a room for 29 days in any 36-day period and for 120 days in a calendar year. SoHo Alliance also claimed that, since the building was residential in character and within a manufacturing district, the desired separation of manufacturing uses from residential had been undermined. SoHo Alliance further claimed that the presence of owner-controlled closets in guestrooms was evidence of the building’s residential character, and that such closets were not among the enumerated accessory uses permitted for transient hotels. (read more…)