Landmark West! representative altered public official’s statement when she read it during public hearing. Virginia Parkhouse, a Landmark West! representative, allegedly misread a letter from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer into the record at a Landmarks Preservation Commission public hearing. Stringer subsequently informed Landmarks of the misstatement, Landmarks complained to the Department of Investigation, and DOI issued a subpoena to Parkhouse. Parkhouse moved to quash the subpoena, claiming that it interfered with her right to free speech and that DOI was not authorized to subpoena private citizens. The lower court upheld the subpoena and the First Department affirmed. 5 CityLand 129 (Sept. 15, 2008). (read more…)

City concedes new facts and requests remand; developer allowed to retroactively correct incorrectly issued permit. Developer GRA V LLC received excavation and foundation permits from Buildings for a proposed 63-unit apartment building. With about 85 percent of the foundation poured, the City downzoned the area, restricting development to one- and two-family houses.

The developer applied to BSA, claiming it had a common law vested right to complete construction based on its foundation permit. Buildings disagreed, explaining that it incorrectly accepted a Sanborn Map from the developer instead of the required licensed surveyor’s survey. This led Buildings to approve foundation plans that showed the proposed building 1.9 feet too close to the lot line. According to Buildings, this made the foundation permit invalid, eliminating any common law vested right claim. In response, the developer highlighted that the mistake impacted the foundation plans only and it could correct the plans when it received the full building permit. Buildings disagreed, telling BSA that the rezoning barred any revisions that failed to comply with the new zoning. (read more…)

ESDC’s determination upheld that three blocks outside urban renewal area were blighted. In 2003, Forest City Ratner proposed to redevelop a 22-acre site in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The site included portions of the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area and portions of three privately-owned blocks outside the renewal area. After Ratner’s proposal was accepted, the Empire State Development Corporation designated itself as lead agency for the project under state environmental law. ESDC prepared an environmental impact statement and a blight study, and later approved the findings in both documents, including the finding that portions of the three privately-owned blocks were blighted. A coalition of local business owners and residents challenged ESDC’s blight finding in the non-renewal area and the sufficiency of the environmental impact statement. Supreme Court Judge Joan A. Madden rejected the challenge, and the decision was appealed. 5 CityLand 16 (Feb. 15, 2008).

On appeal, the coalition argued, among other things, that ESDC arbtrarily selected build years that distorted the project’s potential environmental impacts. The coalition also argued that ESDC’s failure to consider the positive real estate trends in the non-renewal area led it to unreasonably conclude that the proposed project was uniquely capable of alleviating blight in the non-renewal area. The coalition further claimed that ESDC’s finding of blight for the non-renewal area was unsubstantiated. (read more…)

City claimed that West Side residential buildings were illegally converted to transient hotels. In October 2007, a lower court granted the City’s request for a preliminary injunction against three Upper West Side residential buildings, the Montroyal, the Continental, and the Pennington, ordering them to stop using the SROs as transient hotels. The court found that the transient use violated both the Zoning Resolution and the buildings’ certificates of occupancy. Although the multiple dwelling law allowed minimal transient use, the three buildings were using a significant portion of their rooms for transients. (read more…)

Buildings amended crane law to stop crane owners from de-rating crane tonnage capacity. As part of Buildings’ new construction code, a provision was enacted to limit Class C1 licensed crane operators to single control stations. The provision was meant to limit crane owners’ ability to de-rate a crane’s maximum load capacity. De-rating is the practice of reporting that a crane has a lesser ton capacity than it actually has so that a lower licensee, a Class C1 licensee, can operate the crane. A crane with a capacity greater than 50 tons must be operated by a crane operator with a Class A license, a license that is less readily available in the industry. Before enacting the new provision, Buildings inspectors were having difficulty enforcing the licensing scheme because there was no obvious visual means of ascertaining a crane’s actual tonnage capacity. The new provision limited Class C1 licensees to operating single control station cranes because dual cab cranes tended to be larger and had maximum load capacities exceeding 50 tons. By limiting Class C1 operators to single control stations, Buildings could visually observe violations and better enforce compliance.

In 2008, a group of crane owners filed an article 78 petition, challenging the constitutionality of the provision and seeking to enjoin Buildings from enforcing it. A lower court granted a temporary injunction, ruling that the crane owners would likely succeed in showing that the provision as worded was unconstitutional, and that enforcement would cause irreparable harm to the crane owners. The court further ruled that the limit on Class C1 operators to single control stations made the provision arbitrary and capricious because it was not related to what Buildings was trying to regulate. (read more…)