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February 17, 2009

Help with developer's scaffold

Hello,
We have a developer whose property abuts our back yard here in Brooklyn. There have been all the usual tensions between them and us. Their next step is to hang scaffolding over their rooftop and descend into our backyard. The scaffolding will not actually touch our backyard, but will extend 6 or seven feet into our 'airspace.' The intrusion will essentially be the same as if he started from the bottom as opposed to the top.

My question is this - can he do this without my permission? Don't I own the 'air-rights' above my property? Any help or info would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

I don't think you can deny permission to access side of his property.

Posted by: Petebklyn at February 17, 2009 4:08 PM

petebklyn is right. why not make it easy for them to do the work they need to do? why aren't they going from the ground up? did you already deny them access? you can look up the law but you do have to provide access so your neighbor can perform work on their property. good luck.

Posted by: raphael9 at February 17, 2009 5:11 PM

Yes you have air rights and you could hold them up for a while. No matter what demand to be insured for no less than $1M and ask for an indemnity contract to protect yourself in case of an accident.
Sometimes you can get some form of compensation if a lot of work debris etc. is expected.
best of luck... going thru same thing.

Posted by: nedsus at February 17, 2009 6:00 PM

Technically, they are required to ask permission. Courtesy demands that they do so. You can refuse but it just makes the lawyers rich and creates bad feelings since you are required to give them access for necessary maintenance and building department approved work. They are obligated to leave your property the way they found it. It's a good idea to set limits on the time and days they can do the work.

Posted by: jfss at February 17, 2009 7:17 PM

Regarding the liability insurance: I'm doing a scaffold in Union square next week and the standard policy for these companies is 5 mil these days. Get 5 not 1.

Posted by: modsquad at February 17, 2009 7:54 PM

Bldg Dept. told me that if a neighbor denied me access I could/had to drop scaffolding.

Posted by: Arkady at February 18, 2009 10:57 AM

I don't understand why neighbors make issues like this. Because they can? Because the neighbor in question ticked them off 5 years ago? Maybe the OP can explain.

Posted by: BrooklynButler at February 19, 2009 12:54 PM

Nesdus and jfss are right. They need to ask permission and you should work out some terms for you and your property's protection ahead of time.

What some here seem to think is that this is something between neighbors while the OP clearly stated it was a developer doing the work. I can definitely tell you that a developer is NOT a neighbor and that there's nothing neighborly about them. They do not work with the best interests of their building sites neighbors or the communities at all. They don't tend to live in your neighborhood and know they'll never see you again when the job is done so they have a lot less reason to be considerate. Their only concern is to get their job done at the cheapest cost and leave their, in some cases poorly built, creation as quickly as possible. If that's at the expense of the neighbors in terms of damages incurred, so be it. They'll make you spend your money to recoup damages unless you spend the time now to set up terms about all that upfront. That and you may have the DOB giving you a summons for "failure to maintain" once your property is damaged.

I had over 20K worth of damages incurred by the developer next door so I do have a pretty good idea of how it works. We wish we had been way more clear with them in the beginning and set terms up establishing even better protection for our property. Our neighbors to the other side chose not to deal with the developer but rather the project owner and they are still fighting over damages.

Posted by: kensington gal at February 19, 2009 1:53 PM

Oh, besides getting the insurance and indemity, it may also be in your best interest to make sure any scaffolding or catch platforms have the proper plans/permits. I know the catch platforms used in our case didn't the proper plans filed and they collapsed on our house. I had even had the DOB out to check on that but the guy never checked to see if the plans were on file or that what they were doing was legal. DOB said they looked "safe enough" but the platforms filled with hundreds of pounds of mortar collapsed 2 weeks later. Cover your a** is all I can say.

Posted by: kensington gal at February 19, 2009 2:00 PM

Hey,
I wanted to thank everyone for the responses! A bit confusing, but I appreciate all the help. Just to clarify, this is not a neighbor to neighbor issue. Rather, a neighbor to developer issue. It started as amiable, but after coming home number of times to discover them in my back yard without permission, loads of garbage dumped on my lawn for months at time, plus the added bonus of the workers daily lunch garbage being left on the roof so the wind blows it off and it collects in the yard and decorates the tree like it's Bizarro Xmas - enough with the nice nice.

PS - ground up would not work, it would ruin our landscaping.

Thanks -

Posted by: db123 at February 21, 2009 1:24 PM