Rendering of proposed buildings at 204 Avenue A (left) and 535 East 12th Street (right) in East Village, Manhattan. Image Credit: CPC.
Approval of the proposed project will provide housing to families that have been displaced for over ten years. On December 5, 2018, the City Planning Commission heard an application that would allow for the demolition of existing buildings on two City-owned lots and development of ten co-operative units at 204 Avenue A and eleven one-bedroom rental units at 535 East 12th Street in Manhattan. The lots are located on the same block in the East Village, bounded by Avenue A, East 12th Street, East 13th Street, and Avenue B. To facilitate the proposed development, the applicant team requested approval for the disposition of the City-owned lots and designation and approval of the lots as an Urban Development Action Area Project. The application was brought by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, along with the selected developer for the project, Juan Barahona of SMJ Development. (read more…)
Henry Street Firehouse sitting to the right of Henry Street Settlement headquarters. Image credit: CityLand
Community facility will provide on-site social services and improved access to need-based financial benefits. On August 13, 2015, the City Council adopted a resolution to rehabilitate a vacant firehouse and convert it into a community facility. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development submitted the Urban Development Action Area Project proposal to the City Planning Commission on March 31, 2015. The four-story firehouse is located at 269 Henry Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan and has not been used since 2002.
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Buildings denied permit after deciding high-rise building would not comply with State law. In 1999, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development designated a five-story townhouse at 330 West 86th Street as an Urban Development Action Area Project (UDAAP). HPD then sold the property through its Asset Sale Program to the building’s tenants. Two years later, Robert Ricciardelli purchased the property with the intention of demolishing the townhouse and building a high-rise apartment building on the site’s narrow lot. The property’s deed contained language tracking the State’s Urban Development Action Area Act and restricted the owner to rehabilitating or conserving the existing dwellings or constructing new one- to four-unit dwellings as permitted by zoning.
In 2008, Ricciardelli applied to Buildings for a permit to build an as-of-right, four-unit structure seventeen stories high. Objecting to the plans for such a strange building, Buildings interpreted the deed, which applied to subsequent owners, as only permitting the construction of a one- to four-unit, low-rise building. Buildings determined that the plans would not comply with the Act because the seventeen-story tower met the building code’s definition of a high-rise structure.
Ricciardelli appealed to BSA, arguing that nothing in the Act or the deed imposed a height restriction on future construction of a four-unit structure on the site. He claimed the Act only limited the new construction to one- to four-unit dwellings allowed under existing zoning. Riccardelli further argued that Buildings only had the authority to enforce the technical standards found in the building code, the zoning resolution, and the multiple dwelling law. He asserted that HPD maintained authority over the Act’s administration and enforcement. (read more…)
