Residents missed deadline to serve BSA after filing petition challenging decision to grant developer time extension to complete hotel. Dutch Kills Partners obtained a permit from Buildings to develop a nine-story hotel at 39-35 27th Street in Long Island City, Queens. With 24 percent of the project’s foundation poured, the City approved the Dutch Kills Rezoning, which rendered the hotel project out-of-compliance with the maximum permitted floor area. 5 CityLand 149 (Nov. 15, 2008).
Court Decisions
Fence blocking public access to beach enjoined
Neighbors win claim of express easement to access beach along Long Island Sound. In 1928, Locust Point Estate subdivided a large parcel of land on the Throgs Neck peninsula in the Bronx into six residential parcels, and recorded a declaration granting to the new owners easements over six private roads including Casler Place, a dead-end street leading to a patch of beach on the shore of the Long Island Sound. Casler Place remained a private … <Read More>
Court finds City discriminated in housing project
Judge enjoined City’s redevelopment proposal for area straddling Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In December 2009, the City Council approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s redevelopment proposal for the Broadway Triangle Urban Renewal Area in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The seventeen-block urban renewal area was created in 1989 and is primarily located within Community District 1, with a six-block portion within Community District 3. CD 1 is predominately white with a large Hasidic community, and CD … <Read More>
Landmarks wins court order to remove illegal signs
- 598 Broadway. Image: Cityland.
Landmarks alleged that building owner and sign company repeatedly installed advertising signs without approvals. In April 1999, 598 Broadway Realty Associates Inc. obtained a permit from Landmarks to install a single advertising sign on the Houston Street-facing facade of a twelve-story building at 598 Broadway in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District in Manhattan. The permit was valid until April 2005. In August 1999, 598 Broadway applied to Landmarks to install … <Read More>
Court rejects challenge to Chelsea homeless shelter
Group claimed shelter was not an as-of-right use and exceeded maximum number of beds. In 2010, the Bowery Residents’ Committee obtained a permit from Buildings to convert a twelve-story building at 127 West 25th Street into a private not-for-profit homeless shelter, drug treatment center, and offices. BRC planned to provide a 200-bed homeless shelter, a 96-bed reception center for the homeless, a 32-bed chemical dependency crisis center, and outpatient counseling services for up to 100 … <Read More>
Hudson Yards owners lose condemnation claim
Owners of M1-5 properties claimed their land should be valued as if zoned C6-4. The City acquired properties through eminent domain for the Hudson Yards Rezoning and Development Program. The project aimed to develop 38 blocks in Manhattan’s Far West Side and extend the No. 7 subway line south-westward from Times Square to Eleventh Avenue and West 34th Street. 2 CityLand 4 (Feb. 15, 2005). The affected owners’ properties were primarily located on 34th and … <Read More>