By: Cynthia Persinelli
Ever hear of a skyscraper getting shorter?
In February, a State Supreme Court judge caused a stir when he ruled in favor of revoking the building permit for a 52-story tower at 200 Amsterdam Ave. It meant that the building’s developers, SJP Properties, had to cut its size by about 20 stories in order to avoid zoning problems.
According to the I Love the Upper West Side blog, “A recent ruling on 200 Amsterdam Ave was made public on Thursday, and included a statement from Justice W. Franc Perry that the developers “must bear the responsibility for any harsh results arising from the invalidation of the permit.”
The woman who spearheaded the efforts to have multiple stories of the building lopped off was Olive Freud. According to the NY Post, Ms. Freud, a 90-year old retired math teacher has no problem in confronting the agenda of billion-dollar developers.
“We’ve got all the developers in New York City up in arms,” Freud told The Post.
Noted Justice W. Franc Perry in rejecting the opinion that invalidating the permit for 200 Amsterdam would be unduly prejudicial, “Considering the record before this court, [the] owner must bear the responsibility for any harsh results arising from the invalidation of the permit.”
The ruling, the blog continued, “noted that the previous decision by the Board of Standards and Appeals, which sided with the developers, had relied on the “Minkin Memo,” which states that “a single zoning lot… may consist of one or more tax lots or parts of tax lots.” This was interpreted to mean that the developers assembled the lot they built on out of more than one tax lot. This has been a loophole used by developers since 1978. When the BSA granted the permit they argued that there was no hard law in place against this practice and so moved forward.”
It was not just another decision. As therealdeal.com pointed out, “The real estate industry was stunned by a recent ruling that could force developers to chop off the top of a near-complete residential tower. But they should have known better than to continue construction during a legal challenge, the judge wrote in his ruling, which was made public Thursday.”
The I Love the Upper West Side blog quoted “legal expert” Richard Epstein as saying: “It should be evident that if affirmed on appeal, Judge Perry’s order with respect to the Amsterdam building will create chaos. It is no simple matter to lop off the top of a building while trying to leave everything else intact. At a minimum, count on huge expense, noise, confusion and congestion, danger of serious accidents, contractual spats with contractors and pre-completion unit purchasers, and a fresh round of zoning and traffic disputes. Architects will have to reconfigure every internal system – heat, air conditioning, plumbing and more. The developer, therefore, is back at square one. If some penalty to the developer is needed, a hefty fine is surely preferable to this administrative and logistical nightmare.”
