After we reported about some suspicious activity at the Joshua Guttman-owned work site at 187 Plymouth Street yesterday, DOB got right on the stick and went to check things out for themselves. Turns out that, surprise, surprise, Guttman’s crew has overbuilt beyond the scope of the permitted work. The approved plans call for the building to be 13 feet tall, but in actuality it is built to approximately 20 to 26 feet tall, enough room to add another floor; in addition, a masonry wall was built that does not conform to the approved plans. Unfortunately, this is an area where the current building code does not have enough teeth to act as a deterrent to rogue developers. Typically, in a situation like this, a developer can just go back and file an amendment after the fact and, after an inconvenient but hardly painful pause, just pick up where he left off. It’s not clear at this point whether that’ll be the case here. We’ll have to just wait and see.
The Mysterious Case of 187 Plymouth Street [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB