Eric Palatnik testifies before the Board of Standards and Appeals. Image credit: BSA

The Board granted the permit after confirming the neighborhood’s character would not be altered. On March 10, 2015 the Board of Standards and Appeals granted a special permit to Athina Orthodoxou to enlarge a non-complying two-story two-family home at 337 99th Street, in an R4-1 zoning district in the Special Bay Ridge District of Brooklyn.  The Special District was established in 2005 to protect Bay Ridge from high-density development.  (See additional CityLand coverage here.)

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New zoning designed to protect Bay Ridge from high-density development. On March 23, 2005, the City Council approved the Planning Department’s rezoning plan for a 249-block area within Brooklyn’s Special Bay Ridge District, bounded by 65th Street to the north, Seventh Avenue to the east and Shore Road to the south and west. In 1978, after neighborhood residents protested the development of three large residential buildings, the twin 30-story Bay Ridge Towers and the 13-story Shore Hill Apartments, the City established the Special Bay Ridge District. The 1978 zoning generally restricted construction to three stories on residential streets and eight stories on the avenues.

The current down-zoning resulted from additional lobbying by Bay Ridge residents who, even after the special district was established, felt that it was not enough to protect their neighborhood from over-development and the proliferation of “Fedders houses,” named after the air-conditioning units that protrude from the outside walls. In February 2003, residents sought support of newly elected Council member Vincent Gentile, who developed a Preservation Task Force to address their concerns. (read more…)