Condo which used former party wall only as a façade wanted former party wall partner to pay for maintenance. Prior to 1927, two tenements along West 61st Street were joined together by a party wall. In 1927, the owner of the building at 211 West 61st Street tore down the tenement and built a seven-story building. The new building incorporated the former party wall as a façade only, the wall itself no longer providing support. … <Read More>
Court Decisions
Basement apartment ruled legal; Condo’s “peace” sign ruled illegal
Buildings charged that owner unlawfully converted basement into additional rental apartment. In 2013 the Department of Buildings charged the owner of 345 W 70th Street, a multiple dwelling, with creating an illegal apartment in the basement. At the administrative hearing, Buildings submitted three I-cards for the building from 1916, 1938 and 1945. Before 1938, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development used I-cards to record the occupancy and arrangement of the buildings HPD had inspected. … <Read More>
Judge Orders $8.55 M Penalty for Neglected Landmark Property; Urges Parties to Find Alternative Resolutions
Court ordered owners to secure property from demolition by neglect, authorized Landmarks to take necessary steps if owners fail to comply. The Manee-Seguine Homestead, at 509 Seguine Avenue in Staten Island, was designated an individual City landmark in 1984. The house is one of the few surviving buildings in the Borough and City likely to have been constructed before 1700, with an extension built to the original one-room house in the 18th Century. In … <Read More>
Discriminatory Property Tax Case Dismissed
Tenant alleged that the City’s allocation of the property tax burden violated due process and equal protection. Ernest Robinson sought declaratory and injunctive relief alleging that the City’s property tax classification system created a disparate and adverse impact on African-American and Hispanic residents, deprived them of due process and equal protection of the laws, and violated the Fair Housing Act. Robinson alleged that the Class Two tax burden, heavily made up of rental multiple dwellings, … <Read More>
Appellate Court Upholds AirBNB Law [UPDATE: Court of Appeals Denies Leave to Appeal]
Court found that DOB letter of objection exception to the Multiple Dwelling law was no longer valid. On March 17, 2016, New York Appellate Court reversed a Lower Court’s Decision and thus denying Grand Imperial LLC’s Petition for a Letter of No Objection to rent its property for shorter than the legally required time period. Grand Imperial LLC owns a Single-Room Occupancy building, located at 307 West 79th Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, … <Read More>
De Facto Taking Claim Fails
Owner claimed de facto taking when City installed storm drains that flooded land designated as a wetland. The firm 594 Associates, Inc. acquired vacant land on Staten Island in 1985. The land was designated freshwater wetlands or wetlands adjacent area, and therefore development was not permitted. On September 26, 2005, the City constructed a headwall on the property’s border with an adjacent street. The headwall contained an outlet for one of the adjacent street’s storm … <Read More>