Rendering of proposed 4-story building at 63 Stockholm Street, Brooklyn. Image Credit: STAT Architecture/CPC.

The new building will bring 20 deeply affordable units to Bushwick, and will be constructed with sustainability features. On February 13, 2019, the City Planning Commission voted to approve an application by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development for the construction of a new and 100 percent affordable 20-unit building in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. HPD sought City Planning’s approval for the disposition of the City-owned property at 63 Stockholm Street, designation of the property as an Urban Development Action Area Program (UDAAP), and project approval. (read more…)

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…)

Developer sought to extinguish deed restriction on Upper West Side property. The City, through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Asset Sales Program, sold 330 West 86th Street in Manhattan to the building’s tenants. Because the property had been designated as an Urban Development Action Area Project, the deed stated that the tenants could only rehabilitate or conserve the existing dwellings, or construct new dwellings permitted by existing zoning laws. The deed also required the tenants to remove all building code violations and hazardous conditions. The tenants, rather than correcting the violations, sold the property to 330 West 86th Street LLC, a developer who allegedly sought to demolish the building to construct a high-rise apartment building. (read more…)