NEWS: The Minerva Building & the 11th Story Monster
From the Park Slope Courier:
http://www.parkslopecourier.com/site/tab7.cfm?newsid=16923004
Battleground: Park Slope – Opponents Clash With BSA
By Charles Hack
Questioning the city’s willingness and ability to protect communities from illegal development and overbuilding, community groups and politicians rallied to demand that the Board of Standards and Appeals reject two South Park Slope applications.
“They want to continue under the old zoning and allow their illegally overbuilt plans to be built here,” said Assemblymember James Brennan, speaking at a recent protest at the 15th Street property. “And we say no.”
The developers of 182th 15th St. and 614 7th Ave. had applied to the BSA to allow them to finish building with partially completed foundations, under old zoning laws.
One apartment building, planned by Global Development, at 15th Street would soar 11 stories. The other at 7th Avenue, which is to be built by HMS Associates, would rise five stories, or 70 feet. It has threatened to block the historical view between Lady Liberty and Green Wood Cemetery.
Department of Buildings inspectors stopped the work last year because the foundations were not complete when new stringent zoning laws came into effect last November.
Opponents said numerous building code and zoning violations, stop work orders, and video recordings proved that builders had cut corners to get their buildings vested.
To win their appeals, the developers will have to prove their foundations are substantially complete.
Opponents of the development argue that the BSA should not allow any illegal work to count toward completion, which they say accounts for most of the work that was done.
“We have zero tolerance for irresponsible developers who feel they can flout the law and get away with it while disrupting the lives of their neighbors and doing serious damage to the fabric of the neighborhood,” said Michael Schweinsburg, a spokesperson for Councilmember Sara Gonzalez.
Attorney Caroline Harris of Troutman Sanders, acting on behalf of the South Slope Community Group, recently showed segments from video recordings to the BSA of questionable activity at 182 15th St. The footage showed an excavator bashing down a building using a bucket while a worker vainly used a hose to try to dampen clouds of dust that rose up around him. It also shows a man purportedly wandering out of an asbestos abatement area without required protective equipment.
Harris testified that the recordings prove that mechanical demolition was being done in August without permits, and that workmen continued to dampen the site and handle asbestos incorrectly after receiving DOB violations.
The question now for the BSA is whether they are mandated to make their decision based on only a snapshot of how far the foundations have progressed on the day the new zoning came into affect — while turning a blind eye to the violations.
The developers’ attorneys, Howard Hornstein and Peter Geis of Cozen O’Connor, have argued to the BSA that case law requires them to ignore the illegal activity.
“We believe that we have proved our case to the Board of Standards and Appeals,” Hornstein recently told this paper. “We will wait to see what the Board of Standards and Appeals decides.”
But the South Slope Community Group point to wording of the BSA regulations which say that to vest a property, construction must “be legal in all other respects.”
“If the Board of Standards and Appeals approves these improper appeals, it will send an unethical message throughout the city that every developer, every architect, every engineer, every contractor can go and build something that is illegal and violates the zoning resolution and the building code with complete impunity,” said Brennan.
In the case of 614 7th Ave., the DOB testified to the BSA saying that the developer had done most of the work using invalid permits.
In early May, the DOB wrote to the BSA upholding an earlier decision to revoke their permit, just two weeks before the new zoning came into effect in mid-November.
The letter stated that the blueprints the DOB approved in August last year were not valid because of serious “defects in the plans submitted to obtain the permit.”
The DOB had rubber-stamped the plans under a Rudolph Giuliani administration initiative that allows architects to self-certify their plans.
The former mayor wanted to streamline development approvals.
But critics have blasted the system, saying it gives a free ride to unscrupulous architects and engineers.
And now the DOB have decided that the architect’s revised plans, which were approved on Nov. 15 – the day before the new zoning came into affect – were faulty and have issued a 10-day notice to revoke the permit.
“The foundations are 100 percent illegal, 100 percent incomplete and they are not meeting the standards required for vesting,” said Aaron Brashear, a member of Community Board 7 and co-founder of the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights.
The Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), is set to grill the architect for 614 7th Ave., Robert Scarano, because of allegations that he abused the self-certification system. The hearings have been postponed as the judge allowed settlement talks to continue, according to DOB spokesperson Ilyse Fink.
The DOB are trying to remove his professional self-certification privileges after an investigation found he had submitted plans that violated zoning laws and building codes in 25 of his projects round New York.
“He knowingly submitted fraudulent plans to the buildings department,” said Brennan. “They didn’t realize it at first and tried to correct it and stop his work. He is saying, ‘no I should still get what I want.’”
Attempts to contact Scarano in time for publication were unsuccessful.
But then the developer’s attorneys from Cozen O’Connor pulled a new argument out of their collective legal hat in early June. They testified before the Board of Standards and Appeals that the DOB had goofed by reviewing the wrong set of plans.
Brashear, who has taken several trips to review the DOB archives, found only one set of officially stamped plans on file. And that set is dated Aug. 30.
Since the attorney stated that the correct plans were dated Sept. 1, the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights now want the DOB and BSA to explain how a second set of plans could have vaporized.
Last year, residents and the Concerned Citizens for Greenwood Heights and the South Park Slope Community Group fought for some 50 blocks to be rezoned to prevent high-rise towers in what is largely low-rise neighborhoods.
Then they found themselves fighting a rear guard action as several developers wanted to finish their buildings under the old zoning laws.
“Under the circumstances it’s almost impossible to believe we are back here again because of the illegal activity that took place,” said John Burns founder of the South Park Slope Community Group.
Avella said that the BSA should reserve vesting rights for developers who build by the book.
“I used think that we were a city of laws,” said Queens Councilmember Tony Avella. “But apparently the developers in the city have a different code of laws and a different code of ethics. They are allowed to get away with whatever they want. The very fact that permits were issued without approved plans, that the BSA is even considering applications based on illegal work, is disgraceful.”
“Our rallying call has always been don’t reward developers for bad behavior and we are sending that message loud and clear to the BSA,” said Randol
ph Peers, chair of Community Board 7.
Jeff Mulligan, executive director of the BSA, said he was unable to comment.
“We are reviewing the cases and can’t really comment on anything else,” he said.
The BSA is due to decide the fate of the 15th Street by July 25, and the 7th Avenue site on July 18. This may be rescheduled to Aug. 22, because the department is waiting for a submission from the DOB Mulligan said.