To:
From: "Tenant"
Subject: Standards Board Halts Construction Due to Developer's ‘Credibility'
NB: if the developer commences an A78 proceeding
in Supreme Court, which he has indicated, perhaps
various groups ought to file an Amicus Brief. - Tenant
July 27, 2006 Edition > Section: New York > Printer-Friendly Version
Standards Board Halts Construction Due to Developer's ‘Credibility'
BY LEON NEYFAKH - Special to the Sun
July 27, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/36805
A zoning dispute in Brooklyn came to a close on
Tuesday with authorities sending a message to the
city's real estate entrepreneurs: Developers who
try to lie and cheat to push their projects
through legal loopholes should step lightly.
In an apparently unprecedented move, the city's
Board of Standards and Appeals, which hears
arguments from property owners looking to bypass
various city regulations, ruled that the
construction of an 11-story apartment building in
South Park Slope should be halted due to "serious
concerns about the credibility of the developer."
In their testimony to the board, neighborhood
opponents of the project accused Global
Development of carrying on illegal work at the
site, something the company denied. Neighbors
provided the board with videotapes showing evidence
to the contrary.
Global had applied for permission to continue the
construction of the apartment building even
though its proposal violated the zoning
regulations passed in the neighborhood last
November. According to the board's zoning rules,
Global would have been allowed to proceed with
the project if the company could prove that it
had laid a "substantial" portion of the
building's foundation and completed excavation on
the site before the new rules went into effect.
Neighbors and community leaders accused Global of
illegally using mechanical demolition to beat the
buzzer on the new zoning laws, arguing that if
Global had used manual demolition the only
method it had permission to use it would not
have completed enough of the foundation before
the cut-off date. That would have required the
company to scrap the project and redraw its plans for
the development.
Global admitted that it had performed mechanical
demolition on the site late last summer, but at
first told the board that it had done so for only
one day, on August 23, 2005. Later, when
neighbors provided the board with video footage
that showed contractors using various demolition
machinery for as many as six days, Global changed
its story, conceding that mechanical demolition
had, in fact, occurred more than once.
The developer's attorney, Howard Hornstein, who
served as the board's commissioner for three
years in the 1970s, argued that this did not
matter that the legality of the demolition was
irrelevant as long as the developer had completed
the site excavation and made substantial progress
on the building's foundation. But in Tuesday's
resolution, the board wrote that if it was
"compelled to disregard the impermissible acts of
developers merely because they occurred
pre-excavation, it would mean that developers
would have an incentive" to ignore the law.
Thus, the board has set a precedent. From now on,
if a developer does something illegal to beat the
clock on zoning regulations, the board will take
it into account when deciding whether to grant or deny their
applications.
"The board's decision is a legal error," Mr.
Hornstein said yesterday, "and we're going to
discuss going to state Supreme Court."
According to a member of one of the neighborhood
advocacy groups opposing the project, Aaron
Brashear, the board's decision may have an impact
on the three pending South Slope cases that will be
decided in the near future.
July 27, 2006 Edition > Section: New York > Printer-Friendly Version
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