This week City Limits checks in on the unfortunate drama surrounding the Spencer Street Condos in Bed-Stuy. As will come as no surprise to anyone who’s been tracking the story since the early days of the Brooklyn real estate boom, there are no happy endings in sight. To refresh: In 2005, residents who’d bought their condos at 201 Spencer Street the year before from developer Mendel Brach (he of Finger Building fame shame) found out after closing that the building had been illegally overbuilt by four stories by exploiting a “community facility” provision in the code that allowed developers to build extra square footage for educational and religious purposes; in this case, Brach claimed he was going to house teachers from a nearby yeshiva. Department of Buildings failed to catch Brach’s maneuver at the time, approving the building for occupancy just long enough for the unsuspecting condo buyers to close on their units. They’ve all been trapped, unable to sell, for five years.

Residents are trying to negotiate with Brach to gain air rights from neighboring properties, a move that would bring the Spencer Street buildings into compliance, but Brach will only negotiate if residents let him off the hook for $10,900,000 in damages he owes them from a 2009 lawsuit. In the meantime, he’s chipping away at his debts a little bit at a time: $280 a month of Brach’s wages at his bakery job are garnished to pay condo owners. That comes out to a whopping $3.88 per unit. Despite having had a hand in creating the situation, the DOB isn’t being too sympathetic with residents now: they could allow special variance or rezoning to bring the buildings into compliance with zoning regulations, but haven’t for fear of sending the wrong message; nor has the state filed any criminal actions against Brach. “When you deal with these city agencies, I’m learning, logic goes out the friggin’ window,” said one of the unlucky condo owners. “They make the rules. They make no sense to anybody else and they can change the rules when they want.”
Saga of The Worthless Condo [City Limits Magazine]
Banned Devloper Pays Settlement from Bakery Wages [Curbed]
Subpoena for Fraudulent Spencer St Developer [Brownstoner]
A Big F-in Mess on Spencer Street [Brownstoner] GMAP
Lock Him Up and Throw Away the Key [Brownstoner]
The Bottom Line on Developer Abuses [Brownstoner]
Photo by Marc Fader.