Industrial building to be converted to apartments

BSA required owner to demolish rear portion of full-lot building to create needed open space. SMJ Properties LLC applied to BSA to convert and enlarge a three-story manufacturing- zoned building into two apartments totaling 3,893 sq.ft. As originally proposed, the plan maintained the existing building’s full-lot coverage, providing no rear yard or open space.

SMJ argued that the area was primarily residential and the building’s 21-foot width, its narrow staircase and the lack of an … <Read More>

New BID for Downtown Brooklyn approved

Plan encompasses 130 businesses. On February 7, 2007, the Planning Commission approved an application by the Department of Small Business Services to create a new Court Livingston Schermerhorn Business Improvement District for 350 tax lots and 130 businesses in downtown Brooklyn.

The proposed BID will allow an annual assessment on businesses and residents to enhance security, sanitation, holiday lighting, marketing, maintenance and economic development. Within the boundaries of the BID are a Barnes & Noble, … <Read More>

Council amends DOB’s self-certification program

Council action affects suspensions and revocations. By a vote of 47-0, the City Council passed two amendments to the Department of Buildings’ self-certification program. The program allows registered architects and professional engineers to bypass Buildings’ review of their plans by self-certifying that the project complies with zoning laws and the building code.

The amendments eliminate the self-certification program for certain types of work, including all demolitions as well as changes to egress, use or occupancy … <Read More>

Council limits bulk waiver to Manhattan Comm.Board 7

The proposed height provision had, as approved by the Planning Commission, been applicable citywide. On February 28, 2007, the City Council approved the four linked applications for the mixed-use development of West 60th Street Associates, LLC with significant modifications to the developer’s proposed citywide zoning change on bulk.

West 60th originally proposed a zoning text amendment that would allow developers of general, large-scale developments located in certain commercial districts to modify the height factor calculation, … <Read More>

Architect Lord Norman Foster Talks About His Addition to Madison Avenue

The first addition to New York’s skyline by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Lord Norman Foster opened in October 2006 with a red-carpeted gala attended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor George Pataki and Senator Charles Schumer. The building, Foster’s 42-story diamond-grid steel and glass addition to the Hearst Building, an individual landmark at Eighth Avenue and West 57th Street, won the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award, naming it the best skyscraper constructed in the world that year.

Last … <Read More>

Cemetery wins bridge easement over Parkway

City wanted to demolish bridges connecting both sides of Cypress Hills Cemetery. In the 1930s, under Robert Moses’ urging, the City obtained land from Cypress Hills Cemetery through eminent domain to build the Interboro Parkway, now renamed the Jackie Robinson Parkway. The City also built two bridges to allow passage between the cemetery parcels that had been divided by the Parkway.

repair the bridges, but noted that it was not legally responsible for any repairs … <Read More>