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January 31, 2007
New Construction Encroaching on our Backyard
The property directly behind mine has been dug out in preparation for new construction. My question regards how far back from the street they can go. The hole now extends about 12' past the rear line of all the neighboring homes. Is this common in construction? Is the builder illegally adding extra sq. footage? Could it possibly be only basement space with the rear of the bldg remaining in line with the others? I haven't gotten help from the bldg dept or landmarks, so I thought maybe forum contributors had the right info. This street consists of 4 story brownstones. Thanks for your help, JC.
Comments
If you really want to know what the legal setback is (and a lot of times people don't go as far as they can go) you need to look up the property's zoning (you should be able to get this by searching for that property on propertyshark.com which is a free site). Then go this site:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/zone/zh_resdistricts.shtml
There is a pdf for each of the residential zones and it tells you based on the zoning how far the setback has to be. :)
But most people even in brookln don't start new construction without filing plans with the city and no plan is going to be approved if it doesn't include a legal setback so i doubt your neighbor is breaking any laws. Usually illegal extensions seem to be the biggest offender on that rule. But no hard double checking, good luck.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 31, 2007 1:19 PM
he set it back to provide parking in the gate it required with most new constructions.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 31, 2007 5:21 PM
Are you asking about the rear setback? A foundation for a rear extension? Is the the new building being built in line with the surrounding front facades?
Property shark does not keep up with recent re-zonings.
You should bookmark this site as you may need to go visit it on a daily basis depending on how competent the contractors are.
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bispi00.jsp
The Dept. of Buildings BIS web page. From here you can check "Permits" "complaints" "violations" as well as the owner/developer/contractor. Under permits check for any information mentioning "curb cuts". This will tell you whether they are going to have any off street parking. As for the possibility of overbuilding on the site I would say more likely than not. No one builds under FAR anymore. Only an architect looking at the actual approved plans would be able to tell you how they calculated FAR. The DoB won't be of very much help. They are only following the Mayors mission of providing 60,000 more units of housing and don't plan on getting in the way of new development. Want to see if its overbuilt? Call 311 and make a complaint about new construction being built "not according to zoning rules" and mention the setback specifically. You can do it anonymously. As someone who owns property contiguous to the construction, did you get your 5 day notice before demolition/construction/foundation work began?
Posted by: Anonymous at February 1, 2007 2:32 AM
The short answer is that they must leave 30 feet from the back of their building to the rear lot line.
The long answer is too long and too complicated to type in a forum like this.
Posted by: Anonymous at February 1, 2007 1:59 PM
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