Council Members voiced concerns over the proposal’s provisions stripping the City Council of its review over future applications brought pursuant to the proposal. On May 4, 2016, the City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a public hearing on an application submitted by the Alliance for Downtown New York, the NYC Economic Development Corporation, and the Department of City Planning to amend the zoning text controlling the Water Street corridor in lower Manhattan. For … <Read More>
Search Results for: Department of Buildings
Appellate Division Overturns BSA Denial of Sign Registration
The Board of Standards and Appeals had denied the application based on its finding that the signage was an art installation rather than an “advertising sign,” as defined in the Zoning Resolution. Local Law 31 of 2005 amends the regulations governing the usage of outdoor advertising signs by requiring companies engaged in outdoor advertising to submit to the Department of Buildings an exhaustive list of all of the companies’ “signs, sign structures and sign locations” … <Read More>
LES Explosion, Plumber Loses License
Master plumber who held the permits for the work in the buildings destroyed in an explosion found repeatedly negligent and submitted materially false documents to Buildings. Andrew Trombettas, a master plumber affiliated with S. K. Piping & Heating Corp., located at 2103 21st Avenue in Astoria, and Beta Plumbing & Heating Corp, located at 1201 Astoria Blvd in Astoria, has been issued approximately 400 plumbing permits. Following an explosion at a building for which Trombettas … <Read More>
Say Hello to Mandatory Inclusionary Housing!
Almost 55 percent of all renter households in New York City now pay more than 30 percent of their income towards housing costs, an increase of 11 percent since 2000. As a consequence, the City Planning Commission found that “many of the city’s neighborhoods are becoming less economically diverse, which poses a threat to the city’s economic competitiveness as well as to the opportunities available to lower-income New Yorkers.”
Mandatory Inclusionary Housing is one of … <Read More>
Staten Island Building Owner Fined $71,900 for Illegal Conversion
Owner converted a two-family house to a four-family. On May 27, 2009, the Department of Buildings issued four notices of violation to Nashat Estafanous. Estafanous owned a residential property at 25 Simonson Avenue in Staten Island, which he converted, without permits, from a two-family residence to a four-family residence by fitting the attic and newly-constructed garage for occupancy. The NOVs imposed a fine totaling $31,100, and ordered Estafanous to remove the illegal conversion construction … <Read More>
City Developer Denied Tax Abatement
Court found that application was not filed within the statutory time period of one year. On January 27, 2016, the New York State Supreme Court denied a Brooklyn developer’s petition to reverse a Department of Finance decision to not grant a tax abatement. The Developer, 96 Wythe Acquisitions, filed the petition after the Department of Finance denied the application for the tax abatement because it was not filed within the mandatory one-year requirement. 96 Wythe … <Read More>