Owner withdraws application for mixed-use building

Community members protest overdevelopment. D’Angelo Properties, Inc. owns a Carvel ice cream store at 64-01 Grand Avenue in Maspeth. It sought to demolish the one-story structure and, with a bulk variance, construct a 4-storybuilding with a new Carvel, other retail, and community facility space on the ground level, with 15 residential units above.

D’Angelo’s application to BSA represented that a bulk variance was necessary to create a productive use of the property. Conforming retail uses, … <Read More>

Three-story residential building OK’ed

BSA reduced building size, but included parking for each unit. The owner of 114 Walworth Street in an M1-1 district of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, sought a variance to construct a six-story, 47-unit residential building with 24 parking spaces on a vacant 17,500-square-foot lot with 175 feet of frontage on Walworth Street. The site, formerly occupied by residential buildings, has remained vacant since the buildings were demolished.

The applicant argued that Walworth Street’s narrow 50-foot width … <Read More>

Owner withdraws application to convert gym

Owner sought to convert gymnasium into residential units. Christodora House Association, owner of a fifteen-story residential building located at 601-603 East 9th Street at Avenue B in an R7-2 district of the East Village, sought a variance in August 2004 to convert an unused, interior gymnasium into four residential units.

In its application to BSA, Christodora represented that conversion was necessary because the unique location of the gym within the residential building and its double- … <Read More>

134 residential units approved on waterfront

Nineteenth century warehouse to be converted into condominiums. CPP Development LLC, owner of 109-09 15th Avenue, a 100,338-square-foot waterfront lot in an M2-1 district in College Point, Queens, sought a variance to convert and enlarge the existing three-story, masonry warehouse into a six-story, 134-unit residential building. CPP proposed to construct two rear yard additions to the existing 1856 warehouse, which was formerly occupied by the Chilton Paint Company, and remodel the first floor of the … <Read More>

Staten Island Greenbelt adds 1.65 acre City park

New park would preserve natural features. The Department of Parks and Recreation sought a map amendment and approval of the acquisition of a 1.65-acre wooded parcel of private land to facilitate the creation of Manor Park on the southeasterly corner of Altamont Street and Manor Road in Staten Island.

The proposed park site, currently owned by Kanaga Corporation, includes a series of kettle ponds, vernal ponds, and young and mature trees. The site is used … <Read More>

Queens residential area protected

196 blocks of Cambria Heights down-zoned. On July 27, 2005, the City Council unanimously approved a down-zoning, impacting 196 blocks of Cambria Heights, Queens. It is the first rezoning initiative in this neighborhood since 1961 and the fifth Queens neighborhood down-zoned by the City in 2005.

Designed to closely match the size of existing development, the down-zoning’s new residential districts (R2A, R3A, R3-1, and R4B) decrease the size and density of asof- right buildings. The … <Read More>