Equinox Fitness approved after six failed cases in which BSA found it lied to the Board. In its seventh case before BSA, Equinox Fitness Club obtained approval to legalize its 26,600-square-foot gym at 1511 Third Avenue at East 85th Street. Equinox has operated its Third Avenue gym for over ten years without a permit. The zoning restricts gyms to the first and second stories, but Equinox’s Third Avenue gym occupies space on four stories.
In … <Read More>
Upper West Side resident requested revocation of temporary certificates of occupancy for near-complete Trump development. BSA denied an application made by Olive Freud, on behalf of the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, to rescind two temporary certificates of occupancy for The Heritage, a 31- story residential condominium on 240 Riverside Boulevard in Lincoln Square, Manhattan. The building is located within Trump Place, a 15-parcel, residential/commercial development along Riverside Drive South on Manhattan’s west side.
After … <Read More>
Opponents asked that owner re-use existing four-story building. Jack Ancona proposed to demolish a four-story, 3,375-square-foot building at 132 West 26th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, replacing it with a twelve-story, 135-foot retail and residential project. Because the lot retained its manufacturing zoning, the proposal required a use variance.
Ancona claimed that his site’s narrow 18-foot, 9-inch width made it unique and rendered manufacturing uses impractical. Ancona provided documents showing only six other lots … <Read More>
Special permit is associated with major church addition. Gateway Cathedral, located on a 22.5 acre site at 200 Boscombe Avenue in Richmond Valley, Staten Island, applied for a special permit to allow a total of 941 accessory parking spaces. Gateway plans to expand its current 34,493-square-foot church by an additional 87,870 sq.ft. Once the expansion is completed, the church’s capacity will be 3,454 people, up from its current capacity of 820. The expansion plan also … <Read More>
Ozone Park DOT facility will have green components and noise buffers. The DOT sought a map amendment and site selection approval to allow construction of a new maintenance facility at 88-20 Pitkin Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens. The proposed 46,812-square-foot project site would require elimination of a portion of Linden Boulevard that has not been open to the public since the existing DOT facility was built in 1939. The site’s current facility, consisting of two … <Read More>
Residents sought rezoning to halt subdivisions and out-of-character residential development. On March 22, 2006, the Planning Commission unanimously approved a rezoning impacting 82 blocks of the Bayswater and Far Rockaway neighborhoods in Queens. The rezoned areas are predominately residential and border the Far Rockaway commercial district. The rezoning was proposed in response to overdevelopment concerns caused by the subdivision of large lots and replacement of one- and two-family homes with multi-family homes.
Existing R2, R3-2, … <Read More>